one difference changes all
by roguemage251
Summary: one difference is all it takes too change the world for good or for ill. watch as the shinobi world is changed forever by the death of Sasuke Uchiha.
1. chapter 1

Naruto was forced to watch everything happen in slow motion from Haku throwing his senbon to Sasuke pushing him out of the way of the projectiles, to the Uchiha taking all of them in the chest. Now he was holding his oldest friend die in his arms.

Sasuke looked up at Naruto. "I g-(coughs up blood) guess I saved you again h-huh dobe."

Be took ahold of the blondes jumpsuit and looked him in the eyes. "P-promise me one thing Naruto, promise me that you'll avenge my clans deaths, kill my older brother Itachi in my place."

Even as the tears blurred his vision Naruto could see the desperation in Sasuke's eyes which were still in their sharingan state and nodded. "I swear Sasuke, I swear that bastard will pay even if it kills me."

Sasuke relaxed, knowing full well that Naruto would never back down from his word. "T-then take my eyes, have someone implant them in you like my uncle Obito did for Kakashi-sensei and grow stronger. And dobe… don't forget how to live in your persuit of revenge for me."

With those final words the Uchiha breathed his last. Naruto sat the body down gently and stood on his feet with his hair shadowing his eyes. "You killed him, you took my best friend from me. You. Will. Die." In his rage Naruto had pulled on a small amount of the Kyuubi's chakra. The young Uzumaki's hair got spikier, his whisker marks got darker and more defined, his canines enlongated and sharpened, his nails became claws, and finally his eyes changed from their normally cerulean blue to a blood red with slits.

Haku was shaking in fear of the malicious chakra this kid was radiating. 'What is this thing?!'

(With Zabuza)

Both Zabuza and Kakashi stopped mid battle the moment they felt the Kyuubi's power.

Zabuza was shaking in his boots. 'T-that power… it's just like Yaguras! One of those kids is a Jinchuuriki and Haku just pissed them off. FUCK!'

Kakashi was both sad and scared. 'That Haku kid must have killed Sasuke, I'm sorry Mikoto but I failed to keep him safe.'

(With Naruto)

Naruto let loose a rage filled roar that shattered the ice mirrors around him and then ran on his hands and feet at Haku where he hit him with a powerful right hook that sent the fake hunter ninja flying.

The Kyuubi infused blonde flashed over to the ice user and donkey kicked him into the air and attempted to hit him with a low powered tailed beast bomb but it was blocked by a hastily made ice mirror.

While the boy survived he landed in the water under the bridge.

The blonde believing Haku to be dead turned to Zabuza with rage in his crimson eyes. "You, your student killed my friend on your orders. I'll kill you."

Naruto was slowly losing himself to the power and started muttering tope himself as he took slow steps towards his next target. "Kill… kill… kill… kill."

The rogue swordsman started to backpedal away from the blood thirsty preteen until the kid froze in place. The red chakra receaded and the kid fell unconscious. In his sleep the kid spoke. "Just a little longer."

(In Narutos mindscape)

Naruto stood in front of the mountain sized nine tailed fox behind the seal and glared up into his eyes. "Damn it! I almost avenged him and what do you do?! Pull the proverbial rug right from under me and take that power from me! All I needed was a few more seconds and I'd have destroyed him!"

This whole time all of this was happening the Kyuubi sat there calmly and when his Jinchuuriki finished his rant he spoke. "And that's exactly how long it would have taken my power to completely corrupt you kit, your body is not ready to handle the malice in my chakra and especially not in the state of mind you're in at the moment."

The biju sighed. "Look, I should never have let you use my chakra while your mind was in such a vulnerable state and I'm sorry for that, I'll help you grow strong and help train your body to handle my power better but for now my chakra is not a grab as much as you want but grab what is truly needed for a limited amount of time."

Naruto sighed as well as he finally caught on to the amount of damage that could have been done if his furry partner hadn't done what he did. "Alright, I can accept that. When do I wake up?"

The Kyuubi shrugged. "Any time you want, I've already healed your body and mind of all ill affects."

Narutos nodded and started to fade away. "I'll talk to you soon… Kurama."

(Scene change)

Naruto woke up to find himself in Tazunas house in the same bed as before. Right then Kakashi came in. "How's it going Naruto?"

The young Uzumaki rested his head on his knees and couldn't find the will to look his sensei in the eyes. "None of it was a dream was it? Sasuke dying, me losing control?"

Kakashi shook his head sadly. "I wish it was Naruto but no, Sasuke is dead, you lost yourself in your rage, and miraculously the Kyuubi's chakra receaded into the seal."

Naruto ran a hand through his hair. "He did that, the Kyuubi saw I'd lost myself and took his chakra back before I'd completely fallen into my own rage."

Kakashi nodded. "The last container said something similar about the fox not wanting them to lose their way."

At that point before Naruto could ask any questions he moved in to another subject. "Now, in your sleep you kept mumbling about promises and stronger. What's all of that about?"

The blonde stiffened up a little. "I swore to Sasuke that I'd get stronger so I can kill Itachi for him and he said for me to have his eyes implanted into me to give me a better chance at keeping my promise."

The silver haired jounin sighed and nodded. "Alright, I'll go retrieve the body, you lay down and try to go back to sleep. I'll wake you when the procedure is over."

Naruto did as told and was back in his mindscape. For the next couple of hours Naruto looked over his memories with Kurama and reviewed them. The two found a pattern and didn't like it. "I've been such an idiot chasing after Sakura, not paying attention in classes, and not working on my chakra control! How did I even survive against Mizuki let alone everything that we faced here in Wave?!"

Kurama shrugged. "Sheer dumb luck, other than that I couldn't tell you."

Soon Naruto was fading from his mindscape. "It seems Kakashi finished with his part. Here's to never being the same person I was before."

Kurama raised his paw like he had a cup in it. "I'll drink to that."

(Scene change)

Naruto sat up but couldn't see. Putting a hand to hi face he could feel the smooth fabric of one of his T-shirts. "Had to be one of my shirts huh sensei."

He felt a light smack on the back of his head. "Oh quit your complaining, I'll buy you a new one when we get back to Konoha. Now, you'll need to keep that on for a few more hours to let your new eyes adjust. (It's a shorter amount of time due to the Kyuubi's influence and his Uzumaki lineage)

The jounin helped him up to his feet and led him down stairs. After sitting him down in front of the kitchen table he spoke up. "I'm going to fill you in on what's happened while you were unconscious. The first thing is that Gato brought his entire bandit army to the bridge and attacked us, me and Zabuza killed them all with little to no problems and both Zabuza and Haku are still alive."

Naruto jumped to his feet and reached for a kunai but grabbed only empty air. "What?! But they're the reason that Sasuke is dead! They die now!"

Kakashi grabbed his young student by the shoulders and forcefully sat him down. "No! You will sit down and stay calm, they are now official members of Konohas shinobi forces and as a genin you'll show your superior officers the proper respect!"

Naruto growled low and dangerously. "They'll get no respect from me and you're quickly losing what little I have for you Hatake."

There was silence then Naruto heard Kakashi walk away and close the door behind himself.

For the next three hours Naruto sat in complete darkness without a single sound around him and took the 'bandages' off of his face.

Looking around he could see everything in perfect detail but their was an itching sensation in his eyes. Quickly finding a mirror he saw his star shaped mangekyou sharingan. Lessening the flow of chakra to the eyes changed them into the three tomoe sharingan and he sighed in relief. "Until I know what kind of power that evolution holds and how it will affect me I need to stay as far away from it as possible."

That's when he heard Kakashi come back in. "Wise decision, I can teach you what I know but after that you'll have to consult the Uchiha clan library which has been left to you in Sasukes will."

For just a split second Naruto had no idea what his sensei was talking about but then he remembered that every academy student who graduated and became genin had to write a will for if they died on the field and could update it at any moment. He'd written down that if he were to die that all of his worldly possessions were to go to Iruka except for one photo album that would go to Hiruzen and apparently Sasuke had signed over his entire clan compound and all of the clans possessions to him. Oh how he felt like utter shit now.

Naruto nodded. "Listen I'm sorry, if lord hokage has decided that Zabuza and Haku are able to join Konoha then I'll let them go."

Kakashi nodded. "It's fine Naruto, your young and just lost a friend. Hell, at your age I'd have completely lost my shit and gone on a man hunt for the bastard that ordered the kill but the truth is both Haku and Zabuza were only doing their jobs and Haku was apparently trying to disable you but with the angle that Sasuke came in at the senbon severed a few arteries and he lost to much blood."

Naruto sighed as he sat down. "So it all happened because I was to scared to dodge, Sasuke's dead because of me."

The silver haired man was about to speak but was interrupted by a hard punch to Naruto's head by none other than Sakura Haruno. "IDIOT! It's not your fault he's dead! He saved you for a fucking reason, because he saw you as his brother and would rather you live instead of himself."

Naruto was about to punch her back until what she said clicked in his brain and he lowered his fist.

Without a word the blonde left the house and made his way out into the woods.

He knew the route he was taking almost as well as he knew the layout of Konoha, he was headed towards the clearing that his teammates had used for training. When he arrived he got into the academy stance and started going through the motions of the taijutsu style on the same tree he'd used for his tree walking exercises. This was his way of calming down, getting more of his focus back, and preparing to deal with the world once more. When he was training was when he was in his most relaxed state of mind, he was calm, collected, able to make better decisions for himself and those around him but right now all of that was out the window, all he could do was punch and kick at everything in his vicinity until it broke, he'd unconsciously pulled on his own chakra into his fists and feet which added to the strength behind each hit and kick. By the time he'd realized what he was doing he'd doubled the size of the clearing.

Zabuza chose that moment to show up and when he saw the damage done to the area he whistled. "Who knew that kind of power was held within someone as short as you and you didn't even use the Kyuubi's power."

Naruto wiped the sweat off of his brow. "Yeah well ol furball is holding onto every drop of chakra he has like a ryo pincher so I don't fly off the handle again."

Zabuza looked into the kids eyes and saw he had alot of pain and alot of anger that he was trying to squash down. "Listen kid don't bottle up that anger, instead take it out on your enemies. When you're out on the field fight with a brutal efficiency and release that anger, it's the best therapy I know of for shinobi like us."

Haku came limping into the clearing. "Zabuza-sama, where ar…" he stopped as soon as he set eyes on Naruto. "Hey, i-i'm sorry about your friend, my senbon were aimed at a few of your pressure points to knock you unconscious for the duration of the fight so me and Zabuza-sama could kill the bridge builder like we'd been paid to do. If I could take back that attack I wou…"

He was stopped by Naruto raising his hand for silence. "Your apology won't bring him back and for me to mourn when I could get stronger would be me spitting on his grave so stay as far away from me as you possibly can when communication is unnecessary and we'll be just fine."

Haku nodded and limped away and Zabuza followed suit.

For hours Naruto trained himself into the ground with chakra control exercises and physical training until the sun went down. Making his way inside he passed by everyone and went to the bedroom he had shared with Sasuke and Kakashi and fell asleep.

For the rest of the mission Naruto would go to the clearing, train until dark, and only return to the house to sleep, everyday Sakura would bring him food and water so he wouldn't starve himself.

Now after the bridge was built team 7 along with Haku and Zabuza were on their way to Konoha with Sasuke inside of a body storage scroll. (all black with a white streak down the middle) Naruto talked to Kakashi. "Sensei, what will you teach me and Sakura? We must get stronger."

The jounin thought about it. "I'll test you both when we get done debriefing with lord hokage and making your residence at the Uchiha clan permanent and we'll see where to go from there."

Naruto nodded and moved back into his position. Zabuza spoke up. "I can teach you something to keep you preoccupied until we get to Konoha."

Looking over to the swordsman he just gave a quick nod. Zabuza went through a series of hand seals. "Wind style:wind bullet!" He took a deep breath in and then spit out six small balls of sharp air that punched holes through six different trees.

"Since I have only a small affinity to wind and it's rare to find anybody outside of the hidden sand village with the affinity I don't know too many wind style ninjutsu but I should be able to teach you all of the ones I know before we get to the village with you having those eyes. What I want you to do is master each jutsu one at a time, once you've mastered one I'll show you another."

Naruto nodded again and started going through the hand seals. When he finished the last one he took a deep breath in and fired away but only one wind bullet came out and it only broke the bark. "Good first try for someone who's just started elemental ninjutsu, just keep trying and soon you'll get it down."

For the next week Naruto flew through his ninjutsu training from Zabuza and mastered fourteen different jutsu, four wind, eight water, and two earth style ninjutsu. Now they stood in front of the hokage who started with Haku and Zabuza by giving them a map of Konoha and a key to a two bedroom apartment before telling them to come back the next day.

Now turning to Kakashi he put his hand out and the silver haired jounin handed him the body storage scroll. "It's always a sad day when the young leave this world before the old. Remember this well young ones, as shinobi you will see many more comrades die in the heat of battle, or from an incurable poison, or even in cold blood by an assassin, one day the two of you may even be killed before you were supposed to die. The life you have chosen can be harsher and far more demanding then that of a civilians, let this day fuel your training so you may prevent someone else's death."

The hokage sighed. "Though by my sensei's laws I must ask you both this, now that you've seen the true life of a shinobi first hand… do you wish to leave it behind?"

There was no hesitation with Naruto, he shook his head. "No sir, I'm a shinobi till the day I die. And besides, I need to kill Itachi Uchiha before I ever even think of leaving the force."

All eyes turned on Sakura who was still seeing that evil chakra that had surrounded Naruto. 'There was too much malice in there to be just the fox, Naruto's own rage was fueling that chakra as well. This is no longer the Naruto who followed me around the academy like a lost puppy, he's much darker, he's becoming something evil.'

Sakura made up her mind. "I would like to request a reasignment to the Konoha shinobi hospital to be apprenticed to a medical ninja."

Hiruzen nodded. "While you're not apart of the front line assault anymore I'm proud to see you still want to be of assistance to your village."

Sakura looked over to Naruto as the paperwork was being signed and saw he was completely ignoring her presence.

Once everything was settled with Sakura Kakashi had asked for Naruto to be filed as his apprentice and even more paperwork was signed.

After Naruto and Kakashi left Hiruzen handed Sakura a small piece of paper. "This is for the head medical ninja, give this to her and she'll set you up for the basic courses and if you pass that you'll move on to the next set of courses."

As she left Sakura had a look of pure determination on her face. 'I may not be able to take being on the front lines as I originally thought I could but I will not waste my opportunity to be of actual use to my village, instead of taking lives I'll save them!'

XXX

AN: hello guys and gals, this fanfic will be a side project that I'll work on until I get some votes on Naruto:a new world.

I hope you all enjoy and as always MCL homies.


	2. chapter 2

Within the next two weeks word had traveled fast about the last loyal Uchihas down fall and his implanted eyes. Ino surprised him, he'd expected her to be mad, to blame him for Sasuke's death, to wish for his death, to try and have the eyes taken, but not what she actually did. Ino had hugged him and cried into his chest, when she calmed down enough she started to talk to him about all of her memories with the Uchiha before and after the massacre, and she said it wasn't his fault and that she was glad it was him who got Sasuke's eyes instead of someone else because she knew that he'd put them to good use in the name of his best friend.

Now due to Naruto being someone's apprentice instead of being apart of a team he'd been forced to join other teams for the chance to gain experience in the field so he was now after two weeks of nothing but training in his ninjutsu and taijutsu on an extermination mission with team 9 or as they're more commonly known team Gai.

From the very beginning of the mission the Hyuuga of the team kept trying to say something to him but either one of his teammates or his sensei would keep interrupting him and it was really getting on Naruto's nerves. Finally he had enough on the third day of the mission. "Will you three quit interrupting Hyuuga-san, I do believe that he's been trying to speak to me for the last three days."

Gai, Lee, and TenTen all backed off and had looks of dread. Neji nodded and smirked. "What was it like? To see the Uchiha die? I for one am glad he's dead, such weaklings don't deserve to live."

That was all it took and before the Hyuuga boy could even register how bad he'd just fucked up Naruto had punched him through two trees and a boulder before slamming him into another boulder with a chidori aimed directly at his heart. "Listen here _Hyuuga_ , if you ever disrespect my friend again I'll kill you where you stand and I could bet everything I own your whole clan will thank me and make sure I get a full pardon, they may even reward me with training in your oh so precious jiuuken. This is your only warning."

With that Naruto dropped him and walked back over to the rest of the team. The mission went by without a hitch after that, bandits were killed, the nearby village payed them for the mission, and they returned to Konoha where Kakashi thanked Gai for letting Naruto tag along and then took Naruto to an empty training ground. "Alright, the chunin exams are coming up and I signed you up, you'll be tagging along with team 8 on this one. Join them at the academy in two weeks."

Naruto nodded and Kakashi left so he decided to go to the Uchiha clan compound and get to work on a few new jutsu he was working the kinks out of.

(Two weeks later)

For the next two weeks he worked solely on his ninjutsu and taijutsu.

He'd been able to create and master six lightning style, four fire style, and a water style.

With his taijutsu he mastered the interceptor fist.

Now he stood in front of the academy in anbu style pants, a padded black T-shirt, and combat boots with four storage seals tattooed on to him, one on the back of his left hand, (holds water inside) one on the back of his right hand, (holds water inside) one on the inside of his right wrist, (projectile weapons) and one on the inside of his left wrist. (Projectile weapons)

After about ten minutes Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji appeared and they walked in together. As soon as they saw a bunch of genin surrounding a doorway that two people were blocking off team 8 wanted to try to get past them but Naruto held them back. "That's not the real room it's a dummy room to weed out the weaklings, simple genjutsu hidden by the fact that two so called genin are attempting to stop them from getting through who are both Izumo and kotetsu under genjutsu to look younger and have different facial features. I'm able to see through the genjutsu due to the sharingan."

All three nodded and signaled to any other Konoha genin the truth of the area before making their way up to the next floor where the real room was.

When they reached the door Asuma was waiting for them. "Good job making it past the genjutsu but that's the easy part, the next three tests will get increasingly harder."

He turned to Naruto with a smile. "Kakashi said to tell you that he'll be watching you and 'rooting' for you."

On the surface that would be sweet but Kakashi always said look underneath the underneath. _'Danzo is gonna be watching me huh, then let that old war hawk watch, I'll give him the best damn show he's ever fucking seen.'_

Naruto walked into the room with team 8 and was hit with a large amount of KI but to him it felt like a piece of paper sitting on top of his head while to his temporary teammates it was like 12 ton weights on their chests.

Seeing their struggle he released his own KI and aimed it at everyone who attempted this fear tactic which made them all cower back in fear which took the weight off of team 8. "Next time any of you decide to join the big leagues again…" his eyes changed from the sharingan to the Kyuubi's eyes. **"Come prepared."**

All of the people who he was aiming his killer intent at nodded in terror. As he reeled in the KI he smirked. _"Thank you Kurama, best training ever."_

The tailed beasts chuckled from within the seal. **_"No problem, glad to see my work hasn't gone to waste."_**

Before anything else could be said a silver haired boy with glasses on came over. **_"Be careful kit, this one smells like snakes, could be one of Orochimarus spies that the old monkey was worried about."_**

Watching the boy carefully as he spoke with Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji he found that he had ninja info cards on everyone of the contestants. Ino asked about any kumo ninjas and he pulled out three cards.

The first card showed a blonde girl with her hair in a braid. "Yugito Nii, genin, gone on 6 D-ranks, 18 C-ranks, and 2 B-ranks, specialty is ninjutsu, and has an affinity to fire. She also seems to have an obsession with seafood."

The next card showed another blonde girl but she had hers in a short bob cut. "Samui, genin, just as many missions as Yugito, specialty is kenjutsu. She has no food related obsessions."

And finally the third card had a dark skinned male with white blonde hair. "Ao, same amount of missions as the last two, specialty is ninjutsu but is skilled in kenjutsu, has an affinity for lightning and learned to use the third raikages black lightning. No known obsessions."

Naruto glared at the card. _'Kumo would definitely keep that kind of information quiet if for nothing else to keep attention off of the kid who's apparently the apprentice of the third Raikage. I'll have to talk with these guys and warn them about spies.'_

Naruto made a silent shadow clone and left it to keep suspicion off of him just in case he was right about this guy Kabuto.

Sneaking over to where he saw the kumo genin he tapped the shoulder of the one with the black lightning. When he turned around Naruto got straight to business. "I've come to warn you, that guy talking to my temporary teammates has ninja info cards that seem to have too much information on you specifically."

The guy raised his eyebrow. "Oh really, and what kind of information is that?"

The blonde shrugged. "Oh I don't know, maybe a bit to much information on your training in your _lightning_ ninjutsu."

Ao stiffened a little and Naruto started to walk away. "I gave you the information, do what you will with it."

As soon as he was by his teammates again and his shadow clone had dispersed (giving him it's memories) he noticed some sound ninjas running at them or more specifically Kabuto where the lead sound ninja attempted to punch him but he moved his head ever so slightly so that he punched air instead. The silver haired boy smirked and was going to speak when his glasses cracked and he was forced to empty his stomach of all it's contents on to the floor.

Naruto glared again. _'That was staged, he knew exactly what was about to happen and when it would happen, and the sound ninjas were to coordinated for them to have just attacked out of retribution for being disrespected. As a matter of fact the three sand genin didn't seem to surprised by the event either. I'll need to report all of this to lord third soon, but how?'_

That's when his sharingan noticed the one way mirror up above him. _'The jounin lounge is right above us so the sensei's can watch us of course and Kakashi-sensei is the only one up there who'd know the most recent Konoha anbu hand signs.'_

Naruto moved his right hand behind himself as if to reach into his pouch and signaled to Kakashi.

(With Kakashi)

Kakashi was reading from his copy of icha icha Paradise when Kurenai tapped his shoulder and pointed down at Naruto from the one way window. "What's your student doing?" (this got the attention of a hidden ROOT ninja who watched and was just as confused as Kurenai at the seemingly random hand movements

Looking over his book and through the window he saw Naruto with his right hand behind his back and using the konoha anbu hand signs. 'Cards. Spies. Traitors. Call hokage.'

Kakashi acted like he had no idea and excused himself. As soon as he was out of the lounge he shunshined straight to the hokages office. "Lord third I must talk to you immediately, it's important."

Hiruzen sat down his pen and looked straight to Kakashi. He was surprised to see the jounin setting up privacy seals on every corner of the room and shooing away his anbu guard with death glares. As soon as the area was completely clear Kakashi spoke. "Naruto discovered that we may have spies and traitors in our midst. When the first exam is over Naruto will need to be allowed to shunshin here Immediately to tell you everything he couldn't tell me through the Konoha anbu hand signs."

Hiruzen nodded. "Alright but he'll need to make it quick or else he'll be disqualified from the exams."

Kakashi nodded in acceptance. "Of course, rules are rules and we don't want to alarm whoever the spies and traitors are."

(With Naruto)

The first test was just ending and everyone who passed was being told to go to training ground 44.

The Kumo team walked over to Naruto. "Would you mind showing us how to get to the training grounds the purple haired lady mentioned?"

Naruto was about to agree when Kakashi appeared and started dragging him away. "Just follow the team I came in with, I'll be there soon."

Right after he said that Kakashi shunshined them away to the hokages office.

Going straight into shinobi mode he was ordered to tell Hiruzen everything and he did from the cards having to much information to the attack being to coordinated, to the sand genin not being surprised, and finally his own conclusion.

Hiruzen sighed. "How did it come to this? My old student attempting an invasion, an ally joining in on said invasion, and all just after losing such a promising young man on his first mission."

The third looked to Kakashi. "Send an urgent message to the fourth Raikage about the info cards and the possibility of an invasion of Konoha, then send urgent messages to the new mizukage and the Tsuchikage about the invasion of Konoha, if they take their genin out we won't hold a grudge but if they keep them in hopefully that means we have allies in the upcoming fight."

Turning to the blonde Hiruzen smiled. "Thank you for coming to me about this as soon as you knew about it, you may have just saved hundreds of lives by coming to me."

Naruto nodded. "I'm just doing my duty as a Konoha shinobi."

Kakashi nodded to his student. "Go on, you have a second test to finish. If you fail I'll use you as a training dummy for my taijutsu."

The blonde was gone in seconds.

(Scene change)

As soon as Naruto arrived he had to catch a kunai by the blade in-between his pointer finger and thumb. "You just made it by the last second kid, did you have something more important to do?"

Naruto smirked. "No, just making sure I had all my equipment in order, though I think I need a second opinion on my swords… durability."

Anko chuckled as she looked the blonde up and down. "Come see me in a few years after you've 'grown up' and I'll test far more than your durability kid."

The special jounin looked around. "Alright so the rules are simple, you'll be given a scroll with either heaven or earth on it and you need to take the other scroll from another team by any means, you can steal it from them, kill them, or even seduce them for it though I wouldn't recommend that one because plenty of the animals in here are attracted to sexual activity and will kill you on sight like in those horror movies most of you have seen once or twice. You all have six days to get both scrolls and enter the tower in the center of the forest."

Naruto got the scroll for him and team 8 which was an earth scroll. The teams were quickly set up at different gates circling the forest of death. As soon as the whistle was blown the gates opened and They all ran in.

After about six minutes Naruto stopped his team and looked around. Ino was about to ask why they stopped when Naruto spoke. "You can come out now snake breath, I can smell you and I can sense you."

A cold chuckle sounded from one of the higher branches. "Kukukuku, very good Naruto-kun, as to be expected from the one apprenticed to Kakashi Hatake and the person who has Sasuke-kuns sharingan."

From behind a large tree came Orochimaru in all his snake like glory. "What reason do you have to be here?"

The snake sanin smirked. "Well originally I would have been here to offer Sasuke-kun a chance at the power he'd need to kill Itachi but then I heard that he died in battle saving you." Naruto growled at the mention of his failure as a shinobi and as Sasukes rival/friend.

Orochimaru knew what he was doing was treading dangerous grounds but he had a goal and he would be damned if he didn't do anything he could to meet that goal. "But imagine my surprise when I hear that the boy who was dead last as an academy student had sworn to kill Itachi in his best friends place. So to answer your question I'm here to give you a taste of the power I can offer you."

The snakes neck enlongated and reached Naruto but as he was about bite down Choji had come in and hit the sannin with an upper cut by a large fist. (partial expansion jutsu)

Ino gave her fellow blonde a few light smacks to get him back in focus. "Snap out of it Naruto! Focus on reality."

Naruto had come back to his senses and growled at his own stupidity. _'Damn it! I'll never be able to keep my promise to Sasuke like this! I need to kill this snake fucker and be done with it!'_

Naruto's sharingan flared to life and he sped towards the snake sannin and round house kicked him before following up with a sweep kick then as he stood up he pulled out a kunai and plunged it into the mans chest.

Ino looked over Naruto's shoulder. "Is he really dead?"

Before any of them could answer a dark chuckle reverberated around them and then focused into one single spot behind them where Orochimaru rose from inside of a branch. Looking at the corpse behind them it was already falling apart into mud.

Naruto growled. "I should have known he wouldn't go down that easily, he's got the title of sannin for a reason."

The snake like man nodded. "Kukukukuku, that's right Naruto-kun, I knew Sasuke-kun chose the right person to entrust his life goal to. But don't be discouraged, if I was a new born that would have been it for me."

The taunts were getting to Naruto and the snake summoner knew it. The young Uzumaki made four shadow clones and with them he made a five star formation around the sannin. Each of them flew through different hand seals.

Clone1: "Fire style: dragon flame bomb!"

Clone 2: "Water style: water dragon jutsu!"

Clone 3: "Earth style:mud dragon jutsu!"

Clone 4: "Wind style: wind dragon jutsu!"

Original: "lightning style: lightning dragon jutsu!"

All of them: "Five elemental dragon combo: elemental destruction!"

All five of the jutsu struck at the same time and broke the branch they were standing on. Team Asuma and all five Naruto's jumped on to a different branch. The sharingan user turned to the other three. "If that didn't work then run, run and never look back while I do my best to hold him off. You'll need to get help and he obviously doesn't want me dead or he'd have killed me by now."

When the dust cleared they saw the burnt corpse on top of the fallen branch and Naruto laughed. "Yes! I killed a fucking sannin! Next up is Ita…"

Naruto was stopped by the sounds of squelching and looked down only to see Orochimaru crawling out of the burnt corpse covered in some wierd liquid substance. "Chi… well fuck me sideways with a burning log and a rusty sword."

Naruto jumped straight into action and summoned a hundred clones. "GO! GET SOME HELP FROM A JOUNIN OR SOMETHING!"

All three genin hesitated but left to get help. Naruto was forced to witness each of his clones dying through both his own sight and their memories, each clone threw everything he had in his arsenal of nin, gen, and taijutsu at the sannin but nothing even made him flinch.

As soon as he got to the blonde he held him still and bit him on his neck. When he released him a mark in the shape of three connected tomoe appeared in the exact spot as the bite marks.

Orochimaru chuckled darkly. "My gift to you Naruto-kun, when you wake up you'll feel a lot stronger. But remember, this is only the tip of the iceberg."

The mark burned like Orochimaru had injected him with magma. The boy spasmed and screamed in pain. _'This is it, this is how I die. I'm gonna die before I was able to even find Itachi let alone kill him.'_

 **XXX** **AN: hello guys and gals, I've gotten reviews asking me about how Sasuke and Naruto became friends when they were younger so I'll answer that here for everyone.** **In the academy Naruto had decided to actually befriend Sasuke because of him having the same loneliness in his eyes even before the clan massacre due to Itachi being his father's favorite and Mikoto not paying a lot of attention to her younger son and after the massacre Naruto had been determined to keep Sasuke from closing himself in.** **I do hope that this explained it enough.** **As always MCL homies**


	3. chapter 3

While unconscious Naruto was in his mindscape but now there was a small purple goop sitting just outside Kurama's sphere of influence which just so happens to end at the large bars.

The blonde looked over at it then to the giant fox which had singe marks on his tails and other parts of his body. "Am I to guess that thing is the representation of the thing that pedo put on my neck?"

Kurama nodded and they both masterfully ignored the things agitation. "Yes, as far as I can tell the more you use its power the more the hatchling will be able to influence your thoughts and actions but due to the seal your father used I'm unable to influence anything permanent about your body until we find the seal key to unlock my cage. While ingenious against something that would harm you it's foolish in situations like this where I need to destroy the influence part of this thing so you can use the power without losing your free will."

Naruto was thinking when he suddenly started fading. "Guess someone is waking me up. I'll look for a solution to this problem and if I find anything I'll let you know."

(Scene change)

Naruto woke up to find himself in a medical area with team 8 (including Asuma) and Kakashi sitting in guest chairs.

He groaned as he rubbed his head. "Did we win?"

Kakashi chuckled. "Against a sannin? No, no you didn't but he did leave a second present for you." He held up the heaven scroll. "He left this with you to make sure you passed."

Naruto looked over to his sensei. "Can you please call jiji in here?"

The silver haired jounin nodded and spiked his chakra in seemingly random intervals.

As soon as Hiruzen had arrived Naruto showed him the thing on his neck. "Let's get straight to the point, this thing on my neck is able to give me an edge in a fight but each time I use it I'll become easier for Orochimaru to manipulate, I want a seal master to change the seal enough to where I can use it without the drawbacks."

Hiruzen was in hokage mode now. "That can be arranged for after the second part of the chunin exams are over. Now, how much can you tell me about Orochimaru? Did he mention any plans?"

Naruto shook his head. "No sir, all he said about plans was he intends to make me stronger than Itachi, his body language was calm, confident to the point of arrogance, and calculating. He'd thrown taunts around as if trying to get a measured response like he calculated exactly what taunts to use at different moments to push me in a certain direction."

Hiruzen nodded. "That's exactly what he was doing, he's hoping to rile you up and to make your hatred grow stronger so that's all you have left and that would push you right into his arms where he'll train you, mold you into the perfect weapon against Itachi then when you finished that mission he'll aim you at whatever he so desires."

Naruto clenched his fists. "That just means I have another target, no one will ever use me or Sasuke's eyes as their weapon."

Soon Naruto was left to rest and he did just that but as soon as he was about to sleep he felt an extra weight on the medical bed and a head lay on his chest. Opening his right eye he saw Inos blonde hair. As if she could feel him staring she decided to answer the unasked question. "I decided stay in here with you, you fought a sannin and allowed me, Shikamaru, and Choji to run when most kids our age would have attempted to run in the opposite direction. Thank you for helping us."

Naruto put an arm around the girl and held her close. "Your welcome, if you've decided that you are sleeping here with me then get some rest because I have a feeling we'll need it to get through tomorrow."

(Next day)

Naruto was awoken by the feeling of being watched and found that Inoichi was watching him curiously. "Hey Yamanaka-sama, you here to speak with your daughter?"

The man nodded. "Yes but I'm also curious, most people your age would have tried to take advantage of this kind of situation. You just saved a girl and she's crawled into your bed with you and all you do is sleep."

Naruto chuckled as he held the girl. "To be perfectly honest with you sir I've had the biggest crush on your daughter since the first day of the academy, she'd caught my attention with her confidence and hard work in classes, her natural beauty, and her quickness to catch on to new techniques, and that's not to mention her kindness to anybody that she met."

Naruto then gained a bit of steel in his eyes. "That fight between me and Orochimaru could have gotten her and the other two killed in the crossfire and it makes me so angry."

The softness came back as he looked down at his fellow blondes sleeping face. "And yet this angel could only see me as a defender rather than a monster that could have gotten her killed and she laid by a beaten and broken boy who had nothing to give. How could even a thought of taking advantage of her vulnerable state come into my mind."

Inoichi smiled. "You have a long way to go before your the man your father would be proud of but you're on the right track. If you and my little princess decide you two want to be together you have my blessing."

Naruto smiled as he felt Ino move around until she was sitting up. The first one she looked directly at Naruto with her half lidded eyes from just waking up with a small smile. The young Uzumaki smiled back at her. "Hey."

Ino rubbed at her eyes a bit. "Hey yourself, your a very comfortable pillow."

As Ino went in for a kiss Naruto moved his head slightly and put his lips near her ear. "Your dad's in the doorway watching us."

The Yamanaka heiress was now fully awake and jumped out of bed. "Daddy?!"

The older Yamanaka chuckled. "Don't stop on my account, you seemed very comfortable their."

Naruto chuckled at Ino's expense. Said Yamanaka girl glared at him. "Oh you knew he was there didn't you?!"

The blonde boy nodded. "Of course, talked with him while you were drooling on my chest."

She huffed. "And to think I was worried about you, you're an asshole!"

She stomped out of the room with both her father and Naruto laughing. "Don't worry too much kid, she'll come around soon enough."

Right then Kakashi came in. "Hey kid, time for your morning training."

Naruto was up and dressed in his training gear in seconds before following his sensei as he gave a wave back to the Yamanaka clan head.

The blonde followed his sensei down three basement levels to an indoors training area. When the silver haired jounin turned around he forced Naruto into defensive movements, he dodged and blocked as many attacks as possible but even at full focus with Sasuke's eyes he was being kicked and punched on all sides.

When Kakashi stopped he was beaten and bruised on the ground with blood leaking from his nose and lips. "What did you learn?"

The beaten up kid groaned as he sat up. "That my sensei is a child abusing maniac."

Sighing Kakashi spoke again. "No, the first thing you should have seen is that you let your guard down because of your familiarity with me, the second is while you've mastered the interceptor fist you rely on those eyes way to much, the third is I didn't even use 10% of my speed or strength and both Orochimaru and Itachi could beat me while I'm going all out without breaking a sweat, and finally even after getting more sleep than usual you're not at 100% due to those eyes constantly draining you of your chakra."

Naruto growled, Kakashi was continually downing him and his anger is slowly increasing. The silver haired jounin sighed. "Your new training regime will be to increase your chakra control, learn to fight using chakra sensory, and increase your speed and strength. This fight against Orochimaru was the first of many times you'll find someone stronger than you that will not show mercy so you'll need to prepare for such inevitabilities. Now, have the fox heal you, I'm not done with you."

So for the next month Naruto trained even harder and closed himself off even more to the point where he didn't even go to breakfast, lunch, or dinner. He has made tremendous progress in his control and his 'blind' fighting but his speed and strength have been slow to increase. Now it was the day of the preliminaries which had been announced on the third day in the tower and Naruto has changed his outfit.

He wore a black Uchiha clan t-shirt, tan shorts, and combat boots. His head band had been moved to cover his eyes, and his mouth was set in a scowl.

Ino watched her fellow blonde in worry, he was far more distant then he'd ever been before and it scared her.

Soon the proctor called out two names. "Choji Akimichi of Konoha vs. Karin Uzumaki of Sound! All other chunin hopefuls up on the catwalks."

Along with Choji staying in the ring was a short red head that looked like she would break in half if he breathed to heavy near her.

Seeing her small frame Choji looked to the proctor with confusion but Naruto stopped him. "Think before you talk Choji, she made it through the forest of death which means she has to have some kind of notable skill. Don't let the small frame fool you."

Choji nodded and got in his clans fighting stance. Ino looked at her fellow blonde. "How did you know he was about to say something or that this Karin girl has a small frame?"

Naruto smirked. "Chakra sensory allows me to feel people's emotions plus I get a basic shape from them as well. For example I can't tell what anyone's wearing right now but jounin Kurenai Yuhi is bent down to Hinata's level most likely giving her words of encouragement, Kiba and Akamaru are jumping around in excitement to begin their own battle, the sand genin are staying in one spot, they most likely are attempting to look indifferent but the oldest two are scared of the youngest one, and finally Kakashi is attempting to hide in the shadows to read his porn in peace."

The young Yamanaka's eyes widened. "How the hell can their chakra tell you that much?"

Naruto chuckled. "It can tell me so much more such as how strong they are, if they have any injuries, any physical abnormalities, and more. For example, I can feel that there is a pregnant woman here at this very moment."

Ino looked around and attempted to find someone with a baby bump. "Not that far along yet, she's about a week and hasn't even noticed herself."

Ino was worried. "Is she a genin?!"

The blonde nodded. "Yes, a sound ninja. Don't worry though, I'll make sure that the pregnancy isn't terminated from her fight."

They turned to the fight to see that Karin had Choji on the defensive with two golden chains made of chakra attacking him.

Choji dodged the chains and punched the ground with a partially expanded fist.

The ground shook and threw the redhead off of her balance for a split second. This split second was all Choji needed as he threw a volley of shuriken that held her chains in place and he punched her hard enough to knock her out of the ring.

The proctor called it. "Winner! Choji Akimichi!"

The Akimichi clan heir helped the girl up with a smile. "You were amazing out there, your speed with those chains definitely made up for the lack of physical strength 10x, you pushed me to my limit."

Karin was able to see the truth in his statement from his laboured breathing and the sweat dripping from his brow. Smiling she wiped the sweat from her own face. "Thanks, I still need to increase my stamina but I've worked really hard to master those chains so I can increase the number."

Naruto came down and put out his hand which the girl shook with a raised eyebrow. "You're Karin Uzumaki? Glad to finally meet a fellow clansman."

She took one look at his blonde hair and didn't believe him and he chuckled. "Don't let the hair fool you, my mother was Kushina Uzumaki and well my father's identity is an S-rank secret so I can't tell you that."

She reached out with her meagre chakra sensory skills and felt out his chakra and believed him instantly.

Naruto rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "I never learned all that much about the clan, all I know is they were known for kenjutsu and fuinjutsu but nothing else."

Karin smiled as they headed for the catwalk. "Well the chakra chains is our clan's kekkei genkai and it can be unlocked by simply training, since you're an Uzumaki I'll teach it to you while the exams are still going on and as for kenjutsu and fuinjutsu that was more the main family then the branch family but I know for sure that the clan heads had all of their knowledge inside of a library on Uzushiogakure that was sealed with blood key seals. If you can get their then all of that knowledge will be yours."

Naruto smiled. "Thank you Karin." He lowered his head where his lips were close to her ear. "If you wish to live turn yourself into the third, I've already discovered Orochimaru's plan and it's doomed to fail. I'd hate to have to lose the only other clan member I've found."

Before she could speak he walked away. The preliminaries flew by quickly (naruto was pleasantly surprised to find that Hinata had gotten a confidence boost since the academy and came close to beating Neji all without the use of the caged bird seal on the boys head saying that she didn't use it because she was going to change the clans ways when she became clan head) and finally it came down to two people. "Naruto Uzumaki of Konoha vs Tayuya of sound!"

Naruto walked over to the steps and calmly made his way down with his hands in his pockets. As he stepped into the ring he could hear his opponent laughing. "Is this a fucking joke? You want me to fight the fucking blind guy?!"

Naruto smiled kindly. "I can promise you that you won't be disappointed Tayuya-san."

The proctor raised three fingers. "Three. Two. One. FIGHT!" Tayuya attempted to punch Naruto in the gut but he side stepped it.

The sound girl then sent a round house that he ducked before jumping backwards. This continued for a total of ten minutes with her attacking and him dodging effortlessly and it was working at her last nerve. "Will you just fight already!"

He smirked. "Alright." He spun around her and pushed her out of the ring. "Winner Naruto Uzumaki!"

The blonde smiled. "You may want to go get a pregnancy test done by the way, you're already a week into it and soon any strenuous activity could kill it."

With that he walked away. Tayuya was in shock. 'I-i'm pregnant? But how? With who?!' and then it hit her. That snake bastard let his pet medic have his way with me!' thoughts of terminating the pregnancy just to spite them both entered her mind but then a side of her she'd never known existed showed itself, a side that loathed the idea of killing her own flesh and blood, her maternal instincts. 'Maybe if I turn myself in to the hokage I'll be spared execution and if not then they'll at least let me live long enough for my baby to be born."

Naruto waited by team 8 as the third part of the chunin exams fighters we're matched up. "The first fight will be between Naruto Uzumaki of Konoha vs. Neji Hyuuga of Konoha." Naruto and Neji nodded.

"The second fight will be Shikamaru Nara of Konoha vs. Temari of the sand." Both of them nodded with Shikamaru yawning.

"The third fight will be Yugito Nii of kumo vs. Choji Akimichi of Konoha." Both nodded with Choji munching on a bag of potato chips.

"The fourth fight will be Ao of kiri vs. Kankuro of the sand." Ao nodded while Kankuro was repairing his broken puppets.

The fifth fight will be Ino Yamanaka of Konoha vs. Samui of Kumo." Both girls smirked as they nodded."

"And the sixth fight will be Gaara of the sand vs. the winner of the first fight. You all have a month to prepare for the final part of the chunin exams. Good luck to all of you and may the best shinobi/kunoichi win."

Both Karin and Tayuya walked out and we're intercepted by Naruto. "I see both of you are willing to turn yourselves in, I'll bring you straight to him."

With that he used shunshin to get to the hokages office with both young ladies (16 years old) in tow. As soon as they touched down he pushed both of them into bowing positions. "Lord hokage, these two sound ninja have willingly come here to turn themselves in, the one with the big mouth is a week into her pregnancy and my fellow Uzumaki is untouched as far as my chakra sensory can tell."

Hiruzen nodded. "Thank you Naruto, you have done well bringing them to me. Both of you will be given full pardons due to your surrender before the actual attack but for now I'll need both of you to pretend this meeting never happened. You'll both return to Orochimaru and await his signal where the pregnant one will be escorted away from the battle and the Uzumaki will fight for Konoha."

Both girls nodded knowing this was far better than anything they deserved. When they were dismissed they left quickly but Naruto stayed behind on Hiruzen's orders. "Naruto my boy, you've grown distant lately and I'd like to know why that is."

Naruto sighed. "Sir, I know with everything in me that I'm growing stronger at a much faster rate than any normal human being should be able to and yet I still feel like I'm not growing at a fast enough rate, like I'll never be able to catch up to Itachi in time."

The third nodded. "I suspected that this would happen. That blob within your mindscape may not be strong enough to manipulate you into leaving us for Orochimaru just yet but it can put little ideas in your head that can mess with you like for instance that your training is having no real effects or that you'll be weak for the rest of your life without the power my old student can provide you. It will all end soon, Konohas residential fuinjutsu master will be here in three, two, one."

A scream of 'PERVERT' rang out and a white haired guy came flying through the window of the hokage's office.

On instinct Naruto threw a volley of Kunai that stuck the man to the wall. The guy looked at all of the projectile weapons sticking him to the wall and grinned. "At least I know I won't have to teach you to throw right."

This confused Naruto then as realization hit him he groaned. "My only chance at keeping my free will is an old pervert who can't go a whole minute without watching women undress?! And you want me to train under him?!"

Hiruzen nodded. "Yes, he's very skilled and even Orochimaru wouldn't go against him without being completely sure his plan is full proof or he has a perfect escape route in place."

Gaining a new found respect for the guy Naruto nodded. "Alright ero-sennin, let's get this over with."

Groaning at the name Jiraiya took out all of the kunai with no trouble whatsoever and stepped forward with a calligraphy brush and a bottle of ink. "Let's get started, take off your shirt."

Doing as told Naruto placed the shirt right next to him. Sitting in a lotus position Naruto waited as he felt the brush glide over parts of his skin around the mark then a hand touched it.

A burning sensation ran through his entire body before he slumped over in exhaustion.

Jiraiya picked up the prone form of the blonde and threw him over his shoulder. "I'll be taking him out of the village for his training, he's going to need as much time as he can get to train and this seal will only hold back the whispered words for so long so I'll need to get to work on a more permanent seal as soon as I can." With that the toad sage sunshined away.

 **XXX** **AN: hello and welcome back. Well for starters I have to tell you that I've posted another story called the cursed seven and have a second chapter in the making.** **Well now that my shameless self promoting is done I have one question for you, should Naruto end up with just Ino or should he have a small harem? If you guys and gals choose harem it will be limited to a total of three girls with Ino being the main wife.** **Please vote in a review and as always MCL homies.**


	4. chapter 4

When Naruto next woke up he was being carried on Jiraiya's back with his blindfold still on. When he went to sense out any familiar chakra signature's he found he was too far away to even feel Kotetsu's or Izuno's chakra. "How far out are you taking me?"

That's when Jiraiya dropped him. "You're awake now good, you can walk with me."

The young blonde growled. "You didn't answer my question old man."

The avenger felt a cold pressure pushing him into the ground that he knew was KI or killer intent. "And I won't be answering until you learn to show respect boy. From the way I hear it you've done nothing but get worse and worse after the death of that Uchiha boy and couple that up with Orochimaru's seal you're on the fast track to being a flight risk and I'll kill you before you can just hand over the kind of potential you have to that snake!"

After a minute the pressure let up and he was able to breathe again. "Now let's go, we still have a ways to go before we reach our destination."

And so they continued onwards at chunin level speeds. After close to two hours Naruto could sense two chakra signatures that he'd never forget in his life… Haku and Zabuza. "What are they doing here?"

The hatred in his voice was loud and clear and Jiraiya was going to put a stop to it at all costs. "Sensei has asked them to come here and help train you. You will behave yourself or I will not be training you and will have those eyes removed permanently."

Naruto snarled but ultimately stayed quiet. Following Jiraiya he heard people talking quietly. "It's him! He's returned to us!"

The blonde smirked. "It seems you actually have an adoring public ero-sennin."

Jiraiya chuckled. "These aren't my fans but yours, we're in Wave and we're on our way to the homeland of your mother's clan seeing as you have been told about it by a fellow clansman plus it being your birthright I'm taking you to find what we can and you'll learn to use it."

Naruto felt two chakra signatures that he'd never felt before run up to him. "Naruto-nii san!/ Naruto my boy!"

The young genin smiled slightly. " Tazuna! Inari! How have you been?"

He felt a big hand on his shoulder that he recognized as Tazunas. "We're doing fine my boy but what about you? Last we saw you you were mourning that other boys passing through your training."

Naruto stayed silent and lowered his head. The bridge builder sighed. "Listen, it's not much of a consolation but we made a memorial plaque in his honor and hung it on the bridge, would you like to go see it?"

The blonde nodded silently and the bridge builder led him to the plaque. Taking the blindfold off he saw a golden plaque with the Uchiha symbol on the top and it read as such. "Sasuke Uchiha, genin of Konoha and one of the four to defend Wave from Gatos tyrannical rule. This child soldier sacrificed himself for the sake of his teammate and this village, may his sacrifice be a reminder that we must never allow someone like Gato to take our freedom again, that we should never be weak again."

For the first time in a long time Naruto gave a real smile as a tear rolled down his cheek. "Thank you old man, he'd truly appreciate such a thing."

Tazuna frowned slightly. "He'd have never needed such a thing if I would have come forward with the whole truth from the very beginning, I could have brokered a deal with your hokage and gotten a jounin team or a chunin team at the very least and your teammate would still be alive."

Jiraiya looked to the blonde and watched for any sign of him thinking of attacking the civilian but he was pleasantly surprised to find that Naruto stayed calm. "You are not at fault, how could you have known that he'd hire someone of Zabuza's skill level."

Right then both Haku and Zabuza walked forward. "Did I just hear my new student bragging about my skills? I'm blushing." Joked the swordsman.

Naruto growled deeply. "Don't mistake my acknowledgement of your skill as me warming up to you, I'd love nothing more than to be the one to kill you where you stand along with your ice using boy toy."

Jiraiya flared his KI warningly. "Enough, you will behave! Naruto, Zabuza is now your assigned kenjutsu sensei while Haku will teach you about the anatomy of the human body, how to be faster and more flexible and helping you increase your accuracy during a heated battle where you need to be quick with your projectiles. You will show them the same respect you show sensei."

The Uzumaki scoffed. "Even a sennin such as yourself could never in a million years get me to show even an ounce of that kind of respect to the ones who are responsible for the death of Sasuke."

Before Jiraiya could speak Haku decided to do so. "I understand that you're angry, I get that it hurts to lose someone so close to you but you seem to have forgotten the promise that you made to the Uchiha."

That did it, Naruto was on him within seconds pinning him to a tree by the throat and his implanted sharingan spinning wildly. "I haven't forgotten a single thing, I'm growing stronger every day so I can avenge the Uchiha clan for him and I will _never_ let **anyone or anything get in the way of that!"**

Naruto facial features grew wilder as he tapped into Kurama's chakra. It took Jiraiya, Tazuna, and Zabuza to pull Naruto's hand off of the ice users throat and as he gasped for much needed air he spoke. "Not… that… part… I'm talking… about... the other part of your promise to him."

The blonde raised a single eyebrow. **"What other part?"**

Haku stood up all the way. "The part where you promised to live your life, to not be solely focused on killing this Itachi guy, to actually talk to people and socialize. You've completely ignored this side of the promise unless it was necessary or it furthered your own goals. In conclusion you have already failed him before you could even glance at your target."

Naruto was in shock of how he'd not only ignored a part of his promise to Sasuke but completely forgot about it. He got a determined look in his eyes, he swore that he would never forget his promise to Sasuke again.

The blonde released his hold on Kurama's chakra and nodded. "Let's go we're burning daylight." Turning to Tazuna and Inari he smiled. "Thanks again for honoring him like you did, I appreciate it more than you could ever know." Finally turning to Haku and Zabuza he nodded to them. "I will never forgive you for what happened to Sasuke but I am grateful for you showing me the error in my blind rage and obsession, I will learn to temper my anger and use it better than I have so far."

With that the four shinobi began their journey to Uzushiogakure."

(Time skip: 1 month)

After a whole month of training Naruto had made insane amounts progress. With the use of the shadow clone jutsu he searched the entire island/village and found six small bunkers hidden behind low level blood seals that would let in anyone with Uzumaki blood and a large bunker that had a high level blood seal that would only allow a member of the royal/main family of the Uzumaki clan in.

In the six small ones he found very powerful water style ninjutsu, multiple types of taijutsu that varied immensely, multiple types of weapons, very powerful lightning ninjutsu, books/scrolls on the bloodlines found all over the elemental nations, and finally the last of the small ones was full of techniques for the chakra chains. In the large bunker he found hundreds of books/scrolls on fuinjutsu and kenjutsu.

For the entire month he had his shadow clones read through all of the clans knowledge and even practice the jutsu and the chakra chains while he did physical exercises and learned one of the taijutsu styles he'd found along with one of the kenjutsu styles.

At the end of of the month he'd mastered the chakra chains, all of the lightning ninjutsu, half of the water style ninjutsu, his new taijutsu style, and his kenjutsu style. While he'd focused on these things he does have all of the knowledge from everything here and the anatomy charts Haku madefrom ice memorized to an exact because of the sharingan and would be working on his fuinjutsu skills later.

Within the first week Jiraiya had created a temporary seal on Naruto's request that made a small 'hole' in the gates that holds Kurama back and he immediately destroyed the purple goop in Naruto's mindscape before returning to his seal where the 'hole' was closed back up by the other seal being taken off and while he now had free reign to use the power within the seal as he pleased he didn't do much with it other than test the limits of the boost he got from it which doubled his power. Every punch and kick could turn trees into splinters or stone to dust, all of his jutsu were far more destructive, and his genjutsu were harder to escape from where he could keep Jiraiya in a C-rank genjutsu for two minutes in his cursed form. (curse mark lv1)

Now Naruto stood on the bridge in Wave which he'd found out was named the great Naruto bridge in a pair of black anbu style pants, combat boots, a fishnet undershirt, a black T-shirt, and he had his headband around his waist as a belt. He'd let his hair grow out and Jiraiya was forced to tell him about his parents due to the hair naturally going into the same style that Minato's was always in.

Over the horizon he watched as Jiraiya, Zabuza, and Haku walked forward. When they got to him Jiraiya handed him a black piece of cloth. "Your new blindfold since your old one was destroyed during training." The blonde nodded and went to tie it around his eyes when the toad sage stopped him. "Wait one second, I have one last thing to teach you before we leave and that's your birthright from your father." The old sage created a ball of spinning chakra in the palm of his hand. "This is the Rasengan, your father created it after seeing the tailed beast bomb for the first time."

Naruto's sharingan copied the jutsu down to the finest detail and he nodded to signal that he had it memorized. "Now what you need to know is that this is actually an incomplete jutsu, your father was planning on adding an element to complete it like fire or wind so it would be far stronger. If I'm remembering correctly he had even started his research a week before you were born, it should still be in his old home."

Naruto was determined to go get those research notes as soon as possible but for now he put on his new blindfold and turned in the direction he knew Konoha to be in and started walking. "Let's go, Orochimaru's invasion isn't going to stop itself."

 **XXX** **AN: hello and welcome to the newest chapter of one difference changes all, what do you all think? Is he growing stronger to quickly? Is he too angst for y'all? Let me know so I can get better at this.** **As for the pairing the votes are in and it's harem, now your vote is for a total of two girls to be added as Ino's here to stay.** **Also as a secondary vote, should I make it to where Naruto can pass down the sharingan? Like for example Indra talks to him and changes his DNA enough to make him part Uchiha, if you guys and gals choose yes but have a better idea of how to do it then speak up. And as always MCL homies.**


	5. chapter 5

It was the day of the third part of the chunin exams and everyone except for a certain blonde avenger stood within the chunin exams arena and the one to realize this was Ino. _'Where are you Naruto? Please hurry, I have a very bad feeling about all of this like a dark cloud looming over us all.'_

Soon the proctor stood in front of them and the young Yamanaka saw as the audience (nobles, town leaders, all five of the kages/hidden village leaders, civilians, and the genin that had been eliminated early on) started to pay more attention and even started leaning forwards a bit. When the jounin spoke he was loud enough for everyone to hear him without it being considered screaming. "Will round ones contestants Naruto Uzumaki and Neji Hyuuga please stay while all of the other contestants move up to the contestants box in the stands."

Everyone except for Neji walked away. Said Hyuuga scoffed. "Of course he's a no show, it was his destiny to lose to me anyway."

Dark clouds gathered in the sky and lightning flashed in random intervals. When the third big flash of lightning came down it illuminated a silhouette of the blonde genin. "Destiny? I don't believe in such a concept, not after all that I've been through."

Jumping down from the top of the arena wall Naruto landed softly on the ground with two kunai already at the ready.

Neji growled lowly. "You know nothing of pain you insolent fool!"

A calm look that actually scared many of the other leaf genin was plastered to the Uzumakis face as he looked to the proctor. "Please start the match proctor-san."

With a quick 'hajime' the jounin jumped back leaving the two genin to their fight. Within seconds Neji was on Naruto attempting to hit him with palm strike after palm strike In rapid succession but the blonde dodged each of them easily before ducking under the last one and sweep kicking him, as he came back up Naruto pinned the Hyuuga down with his kunai by throwing them into the other boys sleeves.

Standing over Neji Naruto 'stared' down at him in apathy. "I'd like to know where your idea of destiny came from, you're a branch member of the Hyuuga clan that's mostly self taught in your clans taijutsu and yet you're stronger, faster, and far more precise than most main family Hyuuga could even imagine being and yet you're bitter towards them for some unknown reason and believe everything is controlled by some unseen force."

At this Neji ripped his robe sleeves on his way up. "You wish to know? Fine, I've been meaning to get this information to the public for a while anyway."

At this Neji spoke loud enough for all in attendance to hear. "Nine years ago we were at war with Kumo and attempted to call off the war through a treat but they used it as a way to attempt to kidnap Lady Hinata to raise so she'd be there loyal breeding stock on her eighteenth year of age but her father had caught on to this before it was too late and killed the ambassador. Kumo of course denied all of it and demanded that Hiashi be executed and his corpse be given to them as compensation for the loss of their ambassador but instead of Lord Hiashi the elders killed my father in his stead and delivered him to them due to him having this…" He pulled his forehead protector off to show a seal on his forehead which was an X in between two lines. "... On him, this is called the caged bird seal and it's used as a means to not only seal away our Byakugan upon death but torture any branch member who steps out of line. I've only been spared so far because of how many people are here!"

Naruto pulled his blindfold off and looked straight to the audience and to the Hyuuga elders then at the seal on Neji's forehead. "I see, while I do hate the idea of placing seals on family that gives others an easy way to torture each other that gives you no right to be so hateful towards Hinata or anyone else just because they were born within the main family. I'll make you a deal though, if I can not only defeat you but win this entire tournament of an exam and have a better seal made that will completely get rid of the torture element of the caged bird seal then you are obligated to give Hinata-san and little Hanabi-san the chance to have at least one kind family member… you."

Neji moved into an advanced form of the gentle fist. The blonde smirked as he moved into his own stance. "I'll take that as a yes then." The young Hyuuga ran at the blonde again and went for another palm strike but instead of Naruto ducking he deflected it with his left hand and went in with his right hand in a palm strike to the chest.

The branch member grabbed Naruto's wrist just before the hit could connect which led to the young avenger pulling his arm back bringing Neji with it into a powerful knee to the gut.

This gave him the opening he needed to free his wrist and roundhouse kick Neji into the wall where he was once again pinned but this time by a small rock wall.

The match was called in Naruto's favor and he released the other genin before walking away.

As soon as he was in the contestants box he was swarmed by the other genin of Konoha. They all started talking over each other so he quieted them down with a loud 'enough!' before pointing to the girl who faced off against Temari in the preliminary rounds. "Yes, you with the insane amounts of weapons?"

The girl smiled. "Yeah it's TenTen, how the hell did you do that with the lightning and storm clouds?!"

Naruto smirked. "That's actually quite simple, I mixed three different advanced elemental training exercises that my clan created and that's the results. It's not lethal to anyone but it's great for a flashy and badass entrance."

The next one he pointed to was the taijutsu specialist that faced off against Gaara. "Yes, the injured training psycho with huge eyebrows."

"My name is Rock Lee, what was the name of that taijutsu style you used? I'm not familiar with it!"

The blonde had to rub his ears to sooth them after that very loud question. "Yeah first please tone it down, some of us have sensitive hearing, and second you wouldn't have heard of this style because it's been lost since the beginning of the third shinobi world war. It's a taijutsu style created by my ancestors many generations ago called the whirlpool fist due to all of the fluid movements and hard hitting kicks and punches. If I were to compare it to anything you'd know about I'd say it's a mix of the gentle fists fluidity and quick reflexes and the hard fists brute strength and speed."

Naruto noticed out of the corner of his eye Sakura helping tend to Neji's wounds and smirked. _"So she's really taking her new position seriously huh? I'm glad to see she's not letting what happened stop her."_

That's when Kurama spoke up. _**"You should go talk to her, the last time you two saw each other you completely ignored her the moment she showed the slightest amount of hesitation then walked away from her when she chose to transfer."**_

The blonde sighed mentally. _"I_ _know there's no excuse for the way I acted but I wasn't in the best place then and it was made worse by the fact that Haku-san continues to live to this very day."_

Deciding it was best to patch things up as best he could he followed Sakura and the other medics who were carrying the Hyuuga in between them into a small medical wing.

When Sakura noticed him she took a few steps back in shock and a bit of fear. One of the male medic ninjas noticed this and moved in between them where he attempted to be intimidating towards the blonde. "Is there a problem here?"

Naruto shook his head, not even noticing the intimidation attempt. "No, just here to talk with an old teammate."

The man looked back to Sakura then to Naruto. "That's going to be a no, it seems your mere presence scares her so I'm afraid I'ma have to ask you to leave."

The blonde sighed. "Fine. Sakura, if you're even listening right now I want you to know that I'm sorry for the way I acted before. I have no excuse for the way things went down and am ashamed of myself for my actions. Congratulations on your training and good luck."

With that Naruto left the medical wing and was on his way back to the contestants box. In the meantime he was speaking to Kurama. _**"Well that could have gone better."**_

The preteen mentally nodded. _"Yes but it could have been a whole lot worse, I was tempted to just knock that guy out and anyone else who might have tried to stop me. My anger may not be being amplified by Orochimaru's influence anymore but it's still very volatile if uncontrolled. I need to do more mental training if I'm ever to fully be in control of myself."_

There was a determined glint in his eyes at this as he moved out of the dark tunnel into the light of day.

(Scene change: with Sakura)

Three months, Sakura had spent the last three months doing non-stop training, building up her chakra and stamina reserves, relearning how to control her chakra with pinpoint accuracy, learning how to make and properly use medicine, multiple types of medical ninjutsu, etc. She thought that if she ever spoke to Naruto again that she would be able to look at him without fear but she was so focused on healing Neji's back from the damages done to it in his fight that she didn't hear said blonde come in. So when he called her name she got scared.

One of the older doctor's saw this and stood in between them. Sakura had expected many things at this moment, for Naruto to put the doctor under genjutsu, to kill him, to knock him out in a single punch, anything but to just give up and what he said was so simple and kind that it shook her to the core. That boy that she'd come to see as a monster was not what she'd pictured that he'd become.

Tears started rolling down her cheeks. _'I'm sorry too, I misjudged your actions that day an painted you as some kind of demon. But no more, I will never think of you like that again and do what I can to help you achieve your goals!'_ With that she continued her job and quickly healed Neji.

(Scene change: Kage box)

Hiruzen was quite pleased to say the least, the Raikage A, the Tsuchikage Onooki, and the new Mizukage Mei Terumi have arrived and as soon as they got their they discreetly informed him that they have jounin planted within the audience and the rest of the village to join the fight against sand and sound should they go through with their plans.

Now they have just watched Naruto and Neji's fight and are discussing it. A scoffed. "Such a flashy entrance is unbecoming of a ninja, he should be here on time and quietly like everyone else."

Mei smiles. "Oh you're just saying that because he has access to lightning ninjutsu that you'll never have, it's pure jealousy. Now onto that taijutsu style he was using, he made use of each situation to keep the advantage on his side of the fight and didn't drag it on which in my opinion deserves high praise and to be promoted to chunin."

Onooki nodded with a grunt. "Yes, and that quick use of the rock wall jutsu to pin the Hyuuga was ingenious for one so young."

Both A and 'Rasa' both nodded in agreement although reluctantly on A's part. The third hokage was getting pretty suspicious that the Rasa beside him wasn't the real Rasa but didn't let it show as he discreetly informed his allied kages.

 **XXX** **AN: hello guys and gals, welcome back to the newest chapter of one difference changes all.** **As you can see I'm attempting to get Naruto and Sakura to work together, no idea if Sakura is going to end up with Naruto but I doubt it seeing as I've read to many fanfics where Naruto has both Sakura and Ino so the old best friends share a guy thing has gotten pretty old to me.** **If anyone has anything they want Sakura to learn or a different guy for her to be with please let me know.** **And as always MCL homies.**


	6. chapter 6

When Orochimaru had felt his connection to Naruto's cursed seal was severed he flew into a rage, destroying everything in sight and even killing a few of his own shinobi from sound in the process. Losing his only leverage on the blonde was a huge blow on both his pride and his plans.

Right now he was forced to push down his own rage so he can try and fool the other kages, make them believe that he really was Rasa was of the utmost importance if the invasion was to be a success. _'If I'm going to get that kyuubi brat on my side I need to make Konoha look as weak as possible.'_

When Naruto beat the Hyuga boy he was too distracted to notice the silent communication between Hiruzen and the other kage.

(With Naruto)

As soon as Naruto had returned he heard the proctor announce the next fight. "Now that the arena is prepped will Shikamaru Nara of Konoha and Temari of Suna please come down."

The blonde avenger watched as the Suna kunoichi manipulated her wind chakra to float down on her battle fan. "Impressive, she has such precise skill with wind chakra and yet she uses that large fan to do large scale ninjutsu like an amateur. She could be trying to hide her real skill or she could have been taught to just throw those jutsu around because of where she is from."

Shikamaru nodded and yawned. "True, this seems like it will be too troublesome. I'm going to…"

Before he could finish his sentence Naruto spartan kicked him into the arena. "Oh no you don't! You're going to fight like a real Konoha ninja!"

Landing on his back unceremoniously with a groan. As he stood the Nara heir rubbed the back of his head. "Troublesome blonde."

Turning to his opponent the boy began his quick analysis that his clan was known for.

(In the contestants box)

Naruto grinned as he watched the two get ready for the fight. Choji moved over to his fellow genins side and spoke. "Why do you want him to fight so badly that you kicked him out of the contestants box?"

The blonde looked over to the Akimichi heir with complete seriousness. "We may need all of the information we can get on her style of fighting very soon along with anyone else from sand and sound."

The 'big boned' genin snickered a little. "Are you suggesting that our longest lasting alliance is going to be broken soon? That the shinobi from the sand village are going to invade us with the weakest of the hidden villages aid?"

Naruto's facial expression didn't change as he spoke. "Just be prepared for anything and pray to whatever god or gods you believe in that I'm wrong."

Watching the fight the young Uzumaki learned a few things, Temari was a primarily long range fighter with her fairly large arsenal of wind jutsu and a few calculated shuriken thrown in every now and then, she was quick on her feet both physically and mentally, and she was quite proficient with using her battle fan as a club when an opponent gets too close. In the end Shikamaru caught Temari in his shadow puppet jutsu and forced her to hit her head against the wall hard enough to knock herself out.

As the Nara left the arena he was named the winner. Next the proctor called on both Choji and Yugito. Looking to the blonde right beside him Choji spoke. "Should I know anything about her?"

Naruto thought about it. "Well she's a close range fighter like you but she's centered around speed and agility over strength, due to her size you have a good chance of being able to hold her down but that's if you're even able to catch her. You're best chance is to go for the first hit with a partial expansion jutsu on the arm and fist."

The young Akimichi heir nodded and left for the arena. Naruto watched as the two genin stood in front of each other ready with determined looks in their eyes. This is where Kurama speaks up. _**"Your friend is doomed to fail this fight."**_

Naruto was shocked that the fox would so easily say this until he looks at Yugito closely and could see trace amounts of Biju chakra in her own chakra. _"She's a jinchuuriki? But of which one?"_

The fox grins. _**"My dear little sister Matatabi or as she's more commonly known the two tailed hellcat. If she taught her jinchuuriki like she usually does then this girl will have access to many Biju fire jutsu, have insane amounts of flexibility and agility, and be very horny all the time."**_

The blonde almost choked on his saliva at the last part. _"WHAT THE HELL KURAMA! Why did you have to bring up that information?!"_

The fox grinned again. _**"Well you are the sole surviving male of the Uzumaki clan so you have a duty to your clan to revive it, bring more Uzumaki into this world and decide whether you should make them an official clan of Konoha or rebuild Uzushiogakure. I of course vote for rebuilding, it is your ancestral home after all."**_

Naruto thought about it but he decided to put this on hold for now seeing as he had other things to worry about for now.

Looking down at the fight he saw the moment that the proctor brought his hand down in the chopping motion that signals the start of the fight. Choji followed Naruto's advice and partially expanded his right arm and fist mid swing and landed his punch.

As the blonde female jinchuuriki flew back the Akimichi boy tried to catch up to her for a follow-up strike but the girl twisted mid air and hit the wall feet first where she kicked off of it and made claws of blue fire.

 _ **"Biju fire style: claws of incineration , this is Matatabis signature jutsu like the Uchiha with their grand fireball jutsu that they boasted about so much and how they taught it to six year olds. This move won't cut your friend at all but it will burn him and if enough chakra is used could, as the name suggests incinerate him. Don't worry though she's only using enough for minor burns here and there."**_

Naruto nodded as he watched the girl strike at Choji with the flame claws in an X shape to his chest. The young Konoha genin hadn't been injured due to his padded clothes taking the hit and went in for another hit but Yugito dodged to the left and kicked off of the ground towards her large opponent.

The fight went on for another ten minutes and for the whole thing Yugito was so obviously leading it the entire time, she danced around all of Choji's attacks like they were nothing, struck him in weak points with lightning quick punches and kicks before pulling back, and more. She slowly and methodically tore down each and every defense he put up and completely obliterated his offense. At the end of the fight she stood over a slumped over and gasping Choji. "Why do you continue to fight? I have easily defeated you multiple times already, many would have given up after the second or third defeat in a row so why are you so persistent on continuing to struggle when I have so soundly beaten you?"

Choji stood on wobbly legs with cuts, bruises, and burns all over, his left eye swollen shut, blood dripping from his broken nose and busted lip, and his right arm limp. "Because I am a true Konoha Shinobi with the full force of the will of fire burning within my very soul. When I am beaten I will not stop standing back up north will I quit trying, even if I lose to you today, tommorow, and on for the next year I will continue to train and continue to grow stronger and smarter and wiser until I can beat you and continue to do the same thing until I breath my last breath, until I no longer have even a single drop of blood in my veins, until I no longer feel my heart beating!"

A roar of approval came from all of the Konoha Shinobi in the crowd and if one were to look they could find Choji's father Choza in the crowd as well and if one were to listen they'd hear him cheering. "THAT'S MY BOY! I'M SO FUCKING PROUD!"

Choji smiled as he got back Into his stance. "Now, let's continue from where we left off."

At first Yugito just raised an eyebrow then she had a split second laps in concentration before smirking. This smirk was neither cocky nor was it dark, this smirk was one of someone who has gained a respect for another person. The blonde female jinchuuriki got in her own stance and nodded. "Fine, let's end our fight here and now."

Naruto would love to say that Choji's resolve and pure will to win brought him to a decisive victory, that he had fought hard and it payed off but this wasn't a fairy tale, pure will and determination doesn't give you a power boost at the very last second. Choji had been bloody and bruised with burns all over, one of his arms was completely useless, and the constant use of his clans jutsu to gain the upper hand even after his element of surprise was gone had drained him severally while Yugito had no real wounds or physical injuries besides the bruise from the initial attack, had barely used any chakra, and had a two tailed Biju sealed in her that helped her gain back the little bit of chakra she did use. The match was over within seconds, they both charged, Choji went for a right hook, she twirled to the left and hit him in the back of the neck with a quick chop, and he was out like a light.

As the field medics carried the boy away Yugito was declared the winner. The proctor decided to speak. "We will have a quick intermission for our earth style specialists to prepare the area for our next match up, we have concession stands for anyone who wishes to get something before the next match starts."

All of the civilians went to the concession stands while both Shikamaru and Ino stood to go see their teammate. Shikamaru was already at the door when he noticed Ino wasn't behind him, when he turned around he saw her beside Naruto. "Hey, are you coming with us? I bet Choji would appreciate it if you went to talk with him."

The blonde clenched his fists. "I failed him, I told him to try using the partial expansion jutsu from the get go and I didn't use my chakra sensory to find out if she had anything else other than her speed and agility. I'm a failure as a ninja and as a friend, because of my poor judgement he's hurt."

The Yamanaka heiress grabbed her fellow blonde by both sides of his face gently and guided him to look her in the eyes. "That's not true, we all make mistakes and he's plenty old enough to decide if he should give up or not. You heard him out there, the will of fire burns bright within him like I know it does within you so pick your head up and learn from this like he will."

Naruto smiled kindly to the girl. "Thank you, what would I do without you and your encouragement?"

In smiled. "Wallow in self pity and hatred. I can't have that though now can I?"

The blonde avenger chuckled. "Nope, not at all."

As the three walked off they didn't see Jiraiya watching them with a smile. _'Despite everything going on around him, all of the people who hate him and all of the weight he has put on his own shoulders your son will be just fine. After all he has such a caring girl looking after him and he has such loyal friends supporting him to the very end. You have nothing to worry about… Minato.'_

 **XXX** **AN: hello and welcome back to another chapter of one difference changes all.** **As you can see I'm working on progressing Naruto's relationship with Ino. She's definitely got her work cut out for her with him having the baggage that he carries around but if anyone could do it she can.** **Now I have gotten multiple requests for Temari to be in this harem so that is set in stone, all I need is one more lady and the harem will be set.** **Also for those of you who have certain Jutsu that you have created yourselves that you want in the story send me a PM. The requirements are the name, a detailed description, and who should know it, if you have an OC that you want in here the requirements are name, detailed description, rank, and the village they come from.** **And as always MCL homies.**


	7. chapter 7

Naruto, Ino, and Shikamaru walked into the medical room where the medic ninjas had carried Choji and found that he was unconscious and hooked up to a couple machines.

Naruto was the first to react and grabbed a nearby medic ninja by the coat. "Hey, why's he hooked up to those things?!"

The guy was shaking a bit out of fear. "H-he put himself in a rough state and is suffering from multiple bone fractures, internal bleeding, and severe chakra exhaustion. We used a multitude of medical ninjutsu to fix the physical problems and those machines are feeding him different medications to help his chakra levels return to normal. Now please let me go, you're kind of scary."

Ino gently removed Naruto's hand from the guys coat and smiled kindly. "I'm sorry about my friends actions, we're all just a bit on edge right now. Thank you for all of your help in healing Choji."

The medic ninja nodded as he smoothed out his coat. "No problem at all, it's my job and he's a very kind person. If you'd like to wait here he should wake up soon."

All three of them nodded and sat in three chairs that were provided to them.

For the next hour the three genin sat In silence that was only interrupted by the sounds of the machines as they worked to heal their friend. When Choji woke up he looked to the three with a smile then he started to remember what all happened and lowered his head in shame. "I'm sorry Naruto, you gave me your advice and I still lost. I failed you."

Naruto spoke up with a smile. "Hey now, where's all of that determination I saw out there in the arena?"

Putting a hand on the Akimichi boys shoulder in an attempt to comfort him the blonde boy spoke. "I hadn't known about the fire until it was too late and she's obviously been trained by many strong shinobi so while you lost it doesn't mean you failed anyone let alone me, that strength of will you showed out there has earned you not only my respect but that girls as well."

Choji smiled with a small blush. Ino decided to mess with him a bit. "Awwww, do you have a crush on the Kumo girl?"

Before the Yamanaka heiress could pick on Choji any longer the door opened to show Choza with a big smile on his face as he walked in. "My son, I'm so proud of you, you really embodied the Konoha way out there like no other."

Choji's smile changed from embarrassed to truly happy then it changed to a frown. "I'm too weak dad, I need to grow stronger than ever before if I'm going to be the heir and future clan head I need to be. I need more training so I can protect our clan and village like I'm supposed to."

Choza grinned as he patted his sons shoulder. "Don't worry my boy, once you've recovered I'll train you as long as you want. Plus you have such amazing friends here that I'm sure can help you grow stronger as well."

When the Akimichi boy looked to his teammates and Naruto all three of them nodded. Naruto smirked. "I'll do everything I can to help you out Choji, your will and determination will take you far and you'll need all of it to go through the training I'll give you."

All Choji did was grin back and nod. "Bring it on Naruto, After I'm fully recovered I'm going to want that training."

Before he could answer the door was opened by Zabuza. He looked over to Ino with a nod. "Hey kid, your fight is gonna start soon."

The girl stood up and hugged Choji. "Wish me luck, I'm seriously going to need it if that Yugito girl was anything to go off of."

Choji chuckled. "You won't need it but good luck out there, I know you can do it."

Naruto stood up as well and bumped fists with Choji. "I've got to go as well, right after her fight I'm going against that Gaara guy and I have a feeling that I'm going to have a pretty tough fight with him."

Choji nodded. "Yeah, he's got a dark feeling around him. Just be careful, he absolutely destroyed Lee and he's our fastest and physically strongest genin in this village."

Choza spoke up here. "Wait, did you just say that this Gaara guy took out the genin training directly under Might Gai to learn all of his ways was destroyed?! And you're going to fight against him?!"

Naruto nodded and was forced to quickly catch a small pouch. "Within that bag are my clans specially made food pills, take one of these when you're low on chakra or you're tired and you'll be fully recovered and able to fight on for longer periods of time. But be careful because consuming more than three a day can harm your body far more than it could help it."

Naruto nodded. "Thank you, I swear that I'll be careful and if I think that I'm too far outclassed then I'll surrender."

Choza smiled in relief as he nodded. "Thank you, good luck."

With that the two blondes left Shikamaru with the father and son duo. On their way to the contestants box Ino stopped her fellow blonde and looked him in the eyes. "Before we go any further I need to tell you something."

Naruto stopped and listened. "I know that your hyper focused on avenging the Uchihas in Sasuke's place because of your promise to him but I don't want to watch you slowly isolate yourself from everyone who cares about you just so you can spend that extra time training yourself into a grave. What I want to say is that I love you, we may only be thirteen but our lives aren't really expected to live past our mid twenties being ninja and all, and Sasuke's death put it into my mind that we aren't even guaranteed to make it to our teens. What I'm trying to say is…"

Naruto shhhhhed her with his index finger resting on her lips. "I know exactly what you are trying to say and yes I love you too and would love to be with you. Now, how about we go back up to the contestants box and wait for you to be called down for your fight."

When Ino nodded Naruto removed his finger and kissed her before leading her to the seats where they got to see the end of April and Kankuro's fight where Do surrendered due to being poisoned by a couple senbon shot out of the puppet that Kankuro was using at the time. "Winner! Kankuro of the sands! Next up is Ino Yamanaka of Konoha vs Samui of Kumo!"

Ino smiled as she stood up then jumped down and flipped before landing gracefully. Samui jumped down as well but she landed in a 'superhero landing'. Naruto analyzed the girl and on first glance wasn't much to worry about, average in every way except her Tantō which with the way it was positioned suggested that she was right handed. After using his chakra sensory he discovered that she was quite the lightning user. Signaling to Inoichi Naruto got the information to him and had him give it to Ino via mind ninjutsu.

He could see the exact moment In got the info by the way she moved into a different stance. As soon as the proctor called out HAJIME Ino jumped back mid way through a series of hand seals. The moment she landed she finished the final hand seal and called out the name of her jutsu. "Yamanaka secret jutsu: body switch no jutsu!" The Yamanaka heiress dropped to the ground with a thud and 'Samui' turned too the crowd. As soon as her mouth opened to speak she stopped and grabbed her own head while screaming. "GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"

In an instant Ino's body twitched then she sat up gasping while Samui was trying to regain her bearings.

As the two girls stood up all the way they got into their own stances again and Samui unsheathed her Tantō before running at her fellow blonde female.

Ino jumped back again and threw six shuriken at the Kumo girl who deflected them pretty easily.

As Samui got in close she sliced at Ino and she ducked down where she landed a quick jab at her opponents gut before she spun around behind her. Being as quick as she was physically able to be Ino attempted to use her built up momentum to spin kick the other girls back but she was just quick enough to spin around and catch her by the ankle and toss her to the side.

Naruto watched on as In fought long and hard to get this win and she was amazing, using everything she could from her weapons to her jutsu to the environment around her to get any advantage she could but she was outclassed by this Kumo girl who was faster, stronger more skilled, and had a calmer mind, her only real advantage was the area since she knew the area far better than Samui she was able to keep up for now.

Ino would fail if she didn't do something quick and she knew it so she used an experimental jutsu that she'd been working on all month. Going through the hand seals she called out the name of her jutsu. "Yamanaka secret jutsu: Mind blast!" As soon as Samui was in range Ino's just hit her. The jutsu was a thin layer of chakra that was invisible to the naked eye blasting out of her in a spherical shape all around her and sent anything it touched flying backwards. As soon as Samui was down In was on her, snatching to girls blade off of the ground and put the tip to Samui's throat. "Yield to me or die."

Sighing Samui did as told while muttering about how 'uncool' this all was.

Ino was named the victor and on her way back to the top she passed by the Gaara person who smirked as he looked at her but he never said a word. Getting the feeling she didn't want to be near him for too long Ino moved faster and got up the stairs quickly, stepping into the contestants box just in time to see Naruto jump off of the box for his fight.

When the blonde avenger landed he activated his chakra chains which came out as two different chains in the same shade of blue as his eyes with spear heads on the ends. As soon as the proctor said HAJIME he sent the chains forward with a mental command.

Gaara watched impassively as the chains moved forward with his arms crossed, the chains came from inches away from his face when a wall of sand blocked the two chakra constructed weapons.

(In the Kage box)

'Rasa' looked over at Hiruzen. "I do believe your genin just discovered why my son has never been hurt during his missions."

Hiruzen nodded. "Yes but Naruto is nothing if not resourceful and cunning. If anyone is going to defeat young Gaara it would be him."

(Back in the arena)

Naruto thought back to the preliminaries where Lee was able to break through the sand with his speed and started to make up a plan before he smirked and sent chakra to the storage seals on the back of his hands allowing the water in them to pool around his feet.

Flying through hand seals he shouted out his jutsu. "Water style:Twin rising dragons!" From the water came two dragons made of the life giving liquid that flew at the sand user. As the twin dragons came in close proximity to Gaara the sand rose once more only to be soaked and become slow and sluggish.

In this moment Naruto used another jutsu called Wind style: gale force winds that sent the sand genin flying before his sand could protect him.

The blonde quickly used his chakra to catch up to the boy and round housed him into a quickly created shadow clone that donkey kicked him into another clone. This just continued until the sand was forcefully dried by Gaara's chakra and it defended him from another kick.

Looking at Gaara anyone could see that his sand armor was shattered and falling off of him along with a few bruises here and there.

Deciding that he had enough Gaara started forming a large ball around himself. Naruto immediately felt the malevolent chakra coming from within that he knew to be Bijuu chakra. _"Damnit! He's going to release Shukaku!"_

Kurama spoke up. _**"Remember, if it comes down to it you can use my chakra now so do what needs to be done. Plus if he does release my little brother you have that perv of a sage around to seal him away."**_

Naruto nodded and started charging up the Chidori in his right hand. As soon as it was completely charged Naruto added chakra to his feet and sprinted towards the large ball of sand.

(Kage box)

A seemed impressed. "That's the original jutsu of your jounin Kakashi Hatake the Chidori, I didn't know that you were still having your jounin teach assassination jutsu to genin even with the war over Hiruzen-dono."

The third hokage shook his head. "This was not on my orders Lord Raikage, Hatake-san had taught this to Naruto of his own violation. His excuse for such a thing was that the boy is planning to go after Itachi Uchiha so he wants him to be as prepared as he possibly can so he trains him harder than he's ever trained even his old squad back in ANBU from when he was the captain."

Some of the ANBU behind the Kages cringed at the mere mentioning of the training and all of them felt sorry for the boy.

(The arena)

Naruto dodged sand spikes that came out of the ground at random intervals until he reached the ball of sand and thrusted his lightning coated hand forward and through the sand where he felt his hand pierced flesh.

Within the span of a few mere seconds he felt blood dripping from his hand and then heard Gaara from within his large ball of sand. "I-i-is that… blood?! AAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

Naruto jumped back just in time to dodge the sand spikes coming out of the ball. Instantly Naruto noticed sakura petals falling from the sky, Kankuro and Temari coming down from the stands where they carried an injured Gaara out of the arena, and the shinobi from sand and sound start fighting ninja from the other villages.

No matter how much he wished for it not to be true the invasion has begun.

 **XXX** **AN: hello everyone and welcome to the newest chapter of one difference changes all. Next chapter will start off with the invasion, we'll be seeing it from a multitude of POV's so be ready for that.** **Alright now on to the harem, it's going to be Ino, Temari, and Tayuya. I've mainly chosen her as the final member because of biginferno's review where he asked for her on the reasoning that Naruto could give her a better life and I agree. So big shout out to you and I hope you decide to write your own fanfics, I'd love to read them.**


	8. chapter 8

Sakura had worked diligently to heal Neji and the other downed contestants alongside her mentor, all things considered it was pretty slow compared to her usual work load in the hospital from her fellow genin getting in training accidents and civilians having work related injuries.

She was about to release Choji when she felt the beginnings of a genjutsu on her and she dispelled it. Right then all of her fellow medic ninjas came in either carrying patients or holding surgical tools like weapons. Her mentor who was one of the weapon users looked to her quickly. "Sakura! There's an invasion going on outside, you need to help us get these patients to a bunker near here!"

The pink haired girl always thought that she'd go into a panic if something like this happened, that she'd immediately be a hindrance to everyone around her but she was wrong on all accounts. In the moments to come after the invasion she'd swear that it was like a switch had been flipped within her brain because she started thinking things through with cold calculations and nodded before turning to Choji.

"I'm going to need your help, use your clan jutsu so you can carry the patients and stand in the middle of our group."

Turning to the others she scoffed at their use of medical tools. "You're medical ninja so act like it! We have jutsu that can kill and save lives so use them!"

All of the medics nodded and dropped the tools. Sakura quickly had the entire group in order and led the way.

(With Naruto)

Naruto jumped up and looked around until he caught sight of Ino and Shikamaru back to back fighting off a group of sound shinobi in the bleachers as another group of shinobi helped a large group of civilians evacuate.

He saw as the sound ninja attempted to separate them and he jumped in with a quick snap kick to a ninjas jaw sending him flying. In the same moment he had landed he quickly pierced through a second sound ninjas chest with a Chidori.

Shikamaru smirked. "Thanks Naruto but we've got it handled up here. You go find that Gaara guy, I have a distinct feeling that he's important in all of this and it's not going to be good for any of us if he gets away."

Naruto nodded and killed a few more ninja on his way out.

Ino smirked as well as she deflected a punch and plunged her kunai into the soft flesh of her opponents throat. "He sure is an odd guy, kind and gentle one moment and a cold and calculating shinobi the next."

Shikamaru grunted as he used his shadow to strangle six different opponents. "He's a rare breed of shinobi that can balance their personal lives and shinobi lives, most either become drones or die."

(With Naruto)

The blonde caught up to the siblings pretty quickly seeing as they didn't do much of anything to hide their tracks. _"Probably expected that everyone would be too focused on the utter chaos to actually chase them down."_ He'd said to the giant fox in his mind who had agreed with him.

As soon as he caught up he had to jump over a volley of senbon that shot out of Kankuro's puppet. As he landed he unsealed a basic katana in his left hand and a ninjatō in his right hand. Kankuro spoke quickly. "Temari! Take Gaara and run, I'll handle the Uchiha wannabe."

As the dirty blonde girl left with her redheaded brother the puppet user started his attack. Kankuro had his puppet shootout hundreds of projectiles in rapid fire and Naruto used his ninjatō to deflect as many as possible while dodging the others.

The blonde knew that if it wasn't for his implanted sharingan he'd have been shredded by now or he'd be poisoned and left for dead so he had to finish this quick. Using a sealless shadow clone jutsu he created a single shadow clone behind his opponent and it knocked him out.

Running past the unconscious puppet user Naruto continued to chase down Temari and Gaara.

(With the Kage)

As soon as the first petal fell all five Kage jumped up to the very top of the building where four sound ninja jumped in. Before they could do anything Hiruzen spoke. "Now Tayuya!"

One of the sound ninja, who had an obvious baby bump pulled out a flute and started playing it. Her melody summoned huge golems that immediately attacked her supposed allies and held them down.

The elder hokage nodded with a smile. "Good job, now where is Karin?"

Tayuya jabbed her thumb behind her. "Killing our former allies and making her way to your hospital, something about wanting to stop them from hurting anyone there. Hell, we were able to get others in on this and they are headed for different places all over Konoha to protect them and lead the civilians to safety."

(With Iruka)

Iruka was standing just outside of a ninjutsu barrier around the academy fighting off any one of the sound and sand ninja that got close with his fellow chunin instructors. He was cutting down a sound ninja when he caught sight of a pale kid around Naruto's age cutting down the same ninjas but from behind them.

When each of the shinobi were dead Iruka was finally able to get a look at the boys weapons and was surprised to see that they were bone swords. "A member of the Kaguya clan, I thought that your clan had gone extinct."

The boy nodded. "Almost, it's just me and my big brother now. My name's Shiro by the way."

(With Haku)

The moment the invasion began the hospital was one of the first places that the sound and sand ninja came after. Haku used his Hyoton to disable the sand ninja and kill the sound ninjas in a quick and efficient manner.

Within a couple minutes Haku had multiple sand ninja locked up in ice chains and the sound ninja corpses in a block of ice to the side. Right then a group of ANBU came in that he recognized as Hiruzen's personal ANBU corps. Bowing slightly he spoke up. "Glad you're all here, help me lead the nurses, doctors, and patients to a bunker."

(With Yugito)

Yugito was ordered to lead civilians to safety when she was surrounded by enemies. Quickly using Matatabi's chakra Yugito was able to change her fingernails into cat-like claws and got into her personal taijutsu stance. "Come on then, I've been itching for a fight with you sacks of shit ever since Raikage-sama has told me about this invasion!"

The cat Biju smiled from within her seal. _**"That's my kitten, let 'em have it!"**_

As the sound ninja ran forward her claws were engulfed in azure flames and she started tearing her opponents down in the twos and threes.

As this slaughter happened the blonde girl lost track of a few of the sound ninja and they hit her with a combined sound wave jutsu that knocked her on her face. As she was turning around she caught sight of two kunai mid flight being caught by the single largest arm she's ever seen and it was attached to the boy she'd fought earlier.

Turning his head so he could look at the blonde girl over his shoulder Choji smiled brightly. "Hi again, need some help?"

Before Yugito could answer the young Akimichi turned to the sound ninja with the coldest look any Akimichi had ever given anyone. "First you attack my home, then you target civilians and academy students, and now you're attacking someone from their back?! You are the most spineless, cowardly, and the absolute weakest little shit stains to ever walk this land so I'll kill you where you stand."

Choji used his expanded arm to slap the sound ninja into a building then he hit them again but this time into the pavement. Using the size of his hands he crushed the enemy shinobi to death.

Yugito was in a shock at being rescued by the guy that she'd just earlier soundly defeated, and yet it turned her on. _**"I know I'd usually encourage such actions kitten but calm your hormones for now, this is a warzone not a bedroom. Just to let you know, you should definitely tie the knot with him."**_

This shocked her more than anything. _"What?! Why?!"_

Matatabi purred a little. _**"He's stronger than most others, can admit defeat to a woman, and is obviously very honorable for a ninja. I bet he'd even blush and try to look away the first time you show even the smallest amount of extra skin."**_

The thought alone almost made her giggle. Apparently Choji saw that she'd spaced out and tapped her shoulder, when she was focused on his face she saw splashes of blood and some minor cuts and bruises. She looked down further and saw some cuts and scratches on his armor and some burn marks on his sleeves, his forehead protector was even more dented than before. "Did this happen because you had to save me?"

The large boy smiled happily at the worry in her voice. "Oh this? I'd have gotten this anyway with the invasion going on plus I can't just let an ally die let alone one as pretty as you."

This made the female jinchuuriki blush while Matatabi was purring even louder. _**"Oh and he gives such sweet compliments, you definitely need to marry this one kitten."**_

Before anything else could be said the pink haired medic ninja came through with her hand coated in her chakra (chakra scaple) with other medic ninjas and a bunch of patients behind her. "Come on Choji, you can't just run off without warning!"

At that point she noticed the slightly injured jinchuuriki and smiled. "Ah I see, you saw someone in danger and you went to help out huh. Good job."

Choji smiled and looked back to the blonde girl. "Do you want to help us out? We're trying to get these patients to a nearby bunker and have been gathering civilians along the way, we could definitely use someone as strong as you."

Yugito didn't even give Matatabi a chance to speak and nodded. "I was ordered to give assistance in protecting the civilian population so I can join you."

If at all possible Choji's smile got even bigger and brighter. "Great! You can walk with me up front!"

(With Naruto)

Naruto had followed Temari and Gaara to the northern gates and far past them until he was in a close enough distance to fire off a Phoenix flower jutsu that was immediately blocked by a wall of sand.

Temari let her brother go and grabbed her fan off of her back. "Go! I'll catch up with you later."

Gaara stood up tall and looked to his older sibling. "Don't disappoint me, mother is awfully bloodthirsty today and I may just quench her thirst with your blood sister."

As he left Temari blocked Naruto's way. _'I can't let him through! Not when Gaara is like this!'_

Naruto gave the girl a cold look that could freeze hell fire. "You're in my way, I know for a fact that your brother is the jinchuuriki of the one tailed raccoon Shukaku, I know that your village is in on this invasion, I discovered your plot from the day of the first exam and had people within your ranks from the preliminaries gathering Intel and bringing it to me to bring to lord hokage, your plans failed the moment you decided to invade my village."

Temari was shaking in her boots. _'T-this kid is scarier than Gaara, h-he's so cold and calculating. It's like he's looking right into my soul for every one of my weaknesses! He could kill me at any second so why doesn't he and just get it over with?!'_

That's when Naruto's eyes go from cold steel to warm and understanding. "I also know that your people are being tricked into this, a rogue ninja from our village known as Orochimaru killed your father and took his place as the Kazekage to lead you all into your deaths just so he could come after my eyes and to kill Lord hokage. You can stop right now and let me through, I'll stop your brother and help him regain his sanity then we can all go back and put a stop to this pointless bloodshed."

For a moment, a single moment Temari was tempted but then that cold look flashed back in her mind and she raised her battle fan. "If you really do want to help us then leave, I'll even give my father a recommendation to let you join us in the sand village."

Naruto sighed. "It seems you can't be reasoned with then." The blonde looked at her with his cold sharingan eyes once more as he got back into his kenjutsu stance. "Fine, I'll just have to force you to move."

Temari swung her fan and Released a large blast of wind chakra and Naruto used the Grand fireball jutsu which overpowered the wind and grew to twice its original size and had flecks of azure blue in it.

As the chakra fire came close to her Temari tried to block it with her open fan and all it did was destroy her only weapon.

The girl was sent flying backwards from the force of the wind enhanced fireball with multiple burns and multiple burn holes in her clothes.

Naruto flared his chakra. 'two. Captured. Sand. Continue. North.'

(With Kakashi)

Kakashi was fighting side by side with Zabuza and Gai as they killed multiple sound and sand ninja when they felt narutos chakra spike. The silver haired jounin chuckled. "That's my student, he's going after the jinchuuriki! This will be over soon."

(With the Kage)

Hiruzen smirked as he looked to his old student. "And there you have it, your so called 'secret weapon' is soon to be taken down by my top genin. I think that this earns him the promotion, don't you three?"

The other three nodded as Orochimaru scowled.

Hiruzen stepped forward. "I'll make you a deal Orochimaru, defeat me in a one on one battle and you'll be allowed to leave but if I win you not only give up and allow us to put chakra sealers on you but you give me all of your research notes and lab locations."

The snake summoner smirked and nodded. "Of course sensei, I wouldn't have it any other way. Once I've killed you that little traitor and all of her fellow traitors will die as well."

(With Naruto)

The blonde avenger caught up quick and was forced to dodge to the side so as not to be hit with a large ball of compressed sand. As he landed Naruto used Wind style: wind bullet jutsu to hit Gaara but only one of the six small balls of wind hit him and it turned out to have only been a sand clone.

Gaara showed himself and he wasn't the same person he'd just seen running away. Kurama growled. _**"Kit, he's in his first state, the halfway point between where he was before and the full transformation. Be careful."**_

Naruto didn't waste any time activating the chakra chains and using them to bat around Gaara. The battle had lasted for about ten minutes before Gaara had enough and went into full transformation. _**"Kit! You're nowhere near strong enough to use those chains against a Biju, use my power!"**_

Naruto shook his head. _"No, your chakra is a last resort."_ With that he made six shadow clones that all started attacking the mountain sized raccoon.

Naruto fought on until his chakra was low and he had used three Akimichi food pills. _"One more of these could be lethal, I'll have to use the cursed mark now and use the mangekyou."_

As the cursed mark activated naruto's eyes changed and at the end of it he had black flames markings covering half of his body with a six pointed star in each eye. Running up the sand leg of the Shukaku transformed preteen the blonde instinctively shot black flames at any grain of sand that moved. As soon as he got up to the top of the Shukaku head he found Gaara just as he used a jutsu to force himself into a comatose state.

Right then he heard a loud voice from just under him. **"I'M FREEEEEEE! I'M FINALLY FREEEEE!"**

Kurama spoke quickly. _**"It's time for that last resort kit! You can't handle Shukaku yet!"**_

Finally giving in Naruto jumped off of Shukakus head head first as he released his hold on both the cursed mark and the mangekyou. _"Alright Kurama, do what you must to protect the village and her people."_

As the fox took the reigns and forced the full transformation he said one last thing to his jinchuuriki. _**"Always."**_

(Shukakus POV 3rd person)

Shukaku was excited! Finally he'd be able to let loose and kill as many humans as he so desired and to top it off all off he'd be killing the mortals that his older brother had sworn to protect. In his eyes as long as his brother couldn't do anything about it he had free reign to do whatever he wanted to these people.

Right as he's about to move he noticed a small object jumping off of his head. **"What the fuck?"**

Right then his eyes widened as the to thing turned out to be his older brothers jinchuuriki who was engulfed in his chakra and changed into Kurama.

(Normal POV)

Kurama opened his eyes and looked down at his little brother. **"Shukaku."**

The giant raccoon flinched away from the fox in fear. **"B-brother."**

Kurama glared down at his brother. **"You weren't about to try and kill my people were you?"** Asked the older and stronger Biju as he bared his canines.

Shukaku didn't answer, instead he woke his own jinchuuriki and gave control back. The fox snorted. **"That's what I thought."**

Giving control over to Naruto and reversed the transformation. _**"Now it's on you kit."**_

Naruto channeled Kurama's chakra to his legs and started on his way back to Konoha.

(With the Kage)

Hiruzen had fought long and hard until the moment that Orochimaru summoned both the first and second hokages at which point A and Mei both jumped in. "You keep fighting the snake, we'll hold off these two."

Out of the corner of his eye Hiruzen saw a flash of red zooming through the streets of Konoha seemingly to take care of the Invaders and gave one last smirk. "Fine by me. Let's go!"

Hiruzen seemed to be winning and even had been able to cut off both of his old students arms but as he's going in for the kill Orochimaru uses one more trick and spits out a kunai that hits him in the gut.

Using this distraction to slip away Orochimaru takes his most loyal servant Kabuto and runs as fast as he could.

The invasion had been stopped… but at what cost.

 **XXX** **AN: Wow! Over 3,000 words! Now don't expect for all of the chapters to reach this type of length but I will try for this and maybe longer, it all depends on where I'm planning to stop, and how much I feel makes sense to put in along with the usual when I have time to write.** **Next chapter will start off with funerals, interrogations, and new alliance deals. By the way the last one is how I'll get Temari into the Harem, it's the only way that makes end sense to me.** **And as always MCL homies**


	9. chapter 9

It has been two days since the invasion and everyone has been doing their part to rebuild what has been destroyed which hadn't been much due to the heads up that they had and the help they got from the other kages and their shinobi, any sound and sand ninja that had been captured we're locked up in the highest level cells and we're awaiting interrogation, execution, or even both.

After the battle Naruto had noticed that he had blood stains that originated from his eyes and that he couldn't see as well as before. So far even Kurama's healing factor couldn't fix his impaired vision.

Today was the day of the mass funeral and while a few people were standing at the graves of fallen loved ones the majority of the leaf village citizens were at Hiruzen's grave. Naruto being who he was wanted to stay in the back and wait until everyone else had left before he said his peace to his grandfather figure but he caught sight of Konohamaru at the front crying and Asuma wasn't able to calm him alone so he started walking forward.

When the other people saw him in his black suit and tie walking towards where the casket was they split like the red sea but instead of going straight to the casket like most believed he would he stood right in front of the 12 year old boy and crouched to his level to look him in the eyes.

As the blonde looked to Konohamaru he spoke as gently as he could. "Konohamaru listen to me."

The boy started wiping his eyes and looked to his surrogate older brother. "The old man was strong and no one could ever deny that fact but not all of his strength came from his jutsu or his physical prowess, as a matter of fact the majority of his strength came from within, his courage to stand tall and fight against any who would harm his people, his knowledge of different things, and his wisdom to understand when to fight and when to retreat and learn from the mistakes he has made but most important of all his love for this village and those within. He died because he faced off against the rogue sennin Orochimaru to protect those that he loves and he'd never want you to cry over this but to learn from it and to grow stronger."

Konohamaru whimpered a little. "But it hurts Naruto-nii, it hurts to lose grandpa and so many others."

Naruto nodded solemnly at this. "Yes, I know it does, I know the feeling all to well and I'm not saying that you should ignore it, never ignore this pain but don't let it consume you. You're pain becomes your motivation to grow stronger so that you can protect others so no one else has to feel this ever again. No more untimely deaths, no more destroyed buildings, no more war orphans. This is the goal we all work towards and it's what keeps us going when all we see is darkness and despair ahead of us."

Konohamaru sniffles and wipes his eyes one more time before nodding with a determined smile. "Ok Naruto-nii, I'll grow stronger and help reach this goal!"

Naruto smiled back as he stands back up to his full height and ruffles Konohamaru's hair playfully. "Of course you will kid, you're strong willed like gramps was so you'll be kicking ass before you know it. Now, how about we go lay our flowers on the old man's casket before they lower it into the ground."

Both boys did just that at the same moment right as they were lowering it. As they got back in place Asuma laid his hand on Naruto's shoulder. "Thank you, you've always been better with him than anyone else and he's always taken your advice to heart."

The blonde smiled slightly. "He's more like you and the old man than you realize, he's not the little brat who was always on about taking the seat from jiji anymore and sooner or later you will have to acknowledge that or he may be the next one being buried. Take the time to train him every now and then. I'd say the weekends are your best bet seeing as that's when you give your team their break."

Asuma was about to protest the idea but Naruto spoke quickly. "I'm not saying to go all out or anything right now but show him how to better control his chakra, teach him how to hit the targets quicker with better accuracy, give him a basic obstacle course to run every other day, something that will further build on his basic foundation so he can be better prepared for his higher tier training later when he graduates. The most important part is that he sees that you're actually trying to take steps to actually acknowledge him as a shinobi in training rather than a kid made of glass."

The chainsmoker of a jounin nodded reluctantly. "Fine, he'll have to grow up sooner or later and I would rather him be prepared for the worst."

The blonde slinked off to the back again so that the two could be alone for now before they get swarmed by a crowd of people trying to say that they were 'so sorry for their loss' and all of that other bullshit. As soon as he was leaned up against a tree an ANBU member appeared at his side. "The council wishes to speak to you."

Naruto nodded and allowed the masked shinobi to shunshin them both to the destination. Appearing before the entire council Naruto neither bowed nor did he insult them, but instead chose to stay silent.

The first to break the silence was Danzo Shimura. "Naruto-san, do you know why we have called you here?"

The blonde shook his head in the negative. "No sir I have not been informed of why I was summoned, my only knowledge of this is that I have been summoned."

Danzo nodded. "I see, well it has come to our attention that you were the only one who chased after the children of the Kazekage who we have been informed by lord third before his passing was actually dead and that the rogue sennin Orochimaru had used his body to disguise himself as Rasa-san. Seeing as they had been tricked we will be releasing the sand ninja and allowing them to go back to their village but we want you to escort them to their village and give their council this."

Danzo gave him a scroll and he put it away in one of his weapons storage seals. "That scroll is a message to their council, you are to stay there until they give you a scroll just like it. This mission will be classified as an A-rank due to the importance of the scroll and it will start tomorrow at 6:00 sharp so don't be late."

Naruto bowed respectfully to all of the council members before leaving for a bit of training.

(Scene change)

Naruto was on his way to an abandoned training ground when he found Jiraiyameditating. Deciding that he should speak to him about a plan for his new mission he stepped towards him. "Jiraiya-sensei, I must speak with you."

The sennin spoke without opening his eyes to look at him. "I already know about your mission and have already guessed at what you want from me, I will take a look at the boys seal and fix it."

Naruto nodded and bowed respectfully to the toad sage. The blonde was about to leave when Jiraiya spoke. "Even with the cursed mark under your control your heart is still full of rage and darkness, take care to not let this taint cloud your judgement."

The young avenger nodded silently before leaving.

(Scene change)

Temari sat in her cell wearing dark grey rags given to her as a prisoner uniform and her jailors had placed a chakra sealer on the nape of her neck. She was alone in a single bed cell with a toilet and a small sink with a single book given to her as her only form of entertainment and she was not allowed to know where her siblings were being kept. For all intents and purposes this was the best outcome she could have hoped for after being captured.

For the last two days she's been fed and watered with only one hour in a guarded courtyard to keep herself in perfect health both mentally and physically but she never once got to see her siblings or any other sand ninja.

Right now she's In her cell reading when a guard opens up her cell. "Prisoner #7942 report to the visitation area, you have a visitor."

Temari scoffed. "More like an interrogator waiting to use some kind of sick torture to get some kind of information out of me."

Even with her attitude she followed without giving any real trouble and she was lead into a room with a single table and two chairs, one on each side. When she was sat down the guard locked her arms to the top of the table. After a few minutes the door opened behind her and she stiffened up in fear of the voice that she heard. "Unlock her cuffs."

All she could think of was the voice as she was released from her restraints. _'That voice! It couldn't be, but why?!'_

Her worst fears were realized when a boy with spiky blonde hair and whisker marks sat in the chair ahead of her. Leaning forwards Naruto interlocked his fingers together on the table. "Temari of the sand, do you know why I'm here?"

The girl looked down at the table as she spoke, trying and failing to hide her fear. "You're going to kill me. This is the day of my execution."

The blonde avenger could feel a part of himself yearning to do just that, to kill her where she sat as justifiable vengeance for the deaths of so many innocent people but he squashed it down. _'Jiji wouldn't want me to hold a grudge, they were tricked by the snake anyway so I shouldn't hold it against them.'_

Taking in a deep breath and slowly releasing it to calm his rage Naruto shook his head. "No, you and your fellow sand ninja are to be released from your cells and escorted back to your village first thing tomorrow morning with all of your possessions returned to you. Your dead have already been sent back in body scrolls for proper burials or whatever your village does with their fallen shinobi."

Temari's eyes widened at this, she'd be able to return home soon and be with her people, she wasn't about to be killed. Naruto saw this and nodded. "Yes, you will return to Suna and I have been chosen to escort you and all of your fellow sand ninja back to your village where I will be giving your council a new alliance deal to look over. I will also be staying in your village until I have been presented with a scroll that has your council's answer to the deal."

The young wind user looked up in n curiosity. "What kind of deal?"

The male blonde shrugged. "I do not know nor do I need to know, my only concern is to finish my mission with optimum efficiency to ensure that I am successful. I would suggest that your people agree to whatever the council has asked for seeing as we are your only allies."

Temari sighed, her people's future was in the hands of the very people they had attempted to destroy.

Naruto's eyes softened at the sight of Temari's utter defeat. "As a sign of good faith I have called in some help from our resident seal master to fix your brothers horrendous seal. I noticed how he has obvious signs of sleep deprivation which combined with everything else I've seen he must not be able to sleep due to Shukaku trying to escape when he sleeps so I'm having my sensei give him an upgrade in seals. When everything is said and done he will be able to sleep without worry of losing control."

A small smile crossed the girls face at the thought and she spoke two words. "Thank you."

(Scene change)

Anko Mitarashi stood beside Jirobo of the sound four who was tied down to a medical bed with chakra sealers all over him while he's unconscious.

The purple haired woman smacks him to wake him up to which he snaps his eyes open and looks around. Anko smiles sadistically. "Welcome Jirobo of the sound four, welcome to my home away from home also known as the TI department. Today I have you and your teammates all to myself to get all of the information I can squeeze out of you."

Jirobo chuckled. "Like a Konoha whore like you could do anything even remotely close to what Orochimaru-sama does just for training! You're wasting your time bitch!"

The purple haired woman sighed in exasperation as she unsealed a syringe full of a dark orange liquid. "That's a real shame, I was hoping that I could get the information from you without this type of thing happening but I guess I have to show you why Orochimaru had chosen me to sign the snake summoning contract out of any other students he took on during his time as a Konoha shinobi."

Sticking the syringe in a vein leading directly to the brain she put the smallest amount in and watched as he slowly started to close his eyes. "I have always been fascinated by the Yamanaka clan's mind ninjutsu but seeing as I'm not from their clan or planning to marry into it I'm unable to gain access to their library so at the age of twelve I made this serum to act as a replacement for their techniques. Unfortunately even with all of the improvements I've done to the formula I could never replicate the subtle and refined way they breach the mind."

Jirobo watched Anko move around the room with heavy lidded eyes. "This particular serum is called the fear toxin, as soon as you fall asleep you'll either relive your worst memories or you'll be put through a scenario that absolutely _terrifies_ you. I'll continue to put you through this kind of torture until I get the answers I need, do you understand?"

The orange haired boy growled before spitting on her and hitting her on the face. "I'll never betray lord Orochimaru to his failure of a student."

All she did was smile in a sickeningly sweet way that sent shivers down the boys spine as she wiped the spit away before he succumbed to his own sleepiness.

(Time skip)

It took a couple hours but when he finally broke he told her everything he knew from lab locations to experimental notes, when he'd finished she summoned a black mamba on his lap. "Good kid, you did real good. Unfortunately for you I've been ordered to kill you the moment I had all of the information you had and now that I've tapped out your knowledge on the subject… well you get the idea."

The mamba snapped and bit directly into the boy's throat. Anko watched as the boy bled out and turned to the door. _'We will finally kill you for everything you have done sensei, you will pay.'_

(Time skip)

Naruto stood at the northern gates in his usual mission clothes when all of the sand ninja came into the area escorted by ANBU guards.

Looking to the former prisoners he saw that they were still in rags and he looked to the ANBU. "Why are they still in rags? They were supposed to be given their belongings and allowed to change."

The apparent captain tossed a bag on the ground and a few storage scrolls fell out. "It is your mission to escort them which makes this your responsibility." And with that the masked ninjas left via shunshin.

Sighing Naruto picked up the scrolls and the bag before bowing apologetically to the sand ninja. "I apologise for my allies rude behavior, many of us have lost loved ones to the invasion and many will hold a grudge for a while. If you all would please make a single file line I will hand you your scrolls and show each of you to a place where you can change."

The line was formed quickly and without an issue and the blonde Uzumaki was able to hand out the scrolls to each of them until he got to the sand siblings.

Reaching into the bag he grabbed three dirt brown scrolls with the last threes names on them. Handing them over he spoke. "Gaara-san, I don't know what all Jiraiya-sensei told you about your new seal but it will allow you to sleep without fear of Shukaku taking over, you'll have control over when you hear and don't hear the raccoon, and you'll have the ability to use the bijuus chakra whenever you need it but I'd suggest taking the time to reach out to him and learn how to cooperate better so it's not you just taking his power and it's not just him taking your body. This will allow for better techniques to be utilized, easier flow and control of chakra, and even a full body transformation without any of the drawbacks that you get now after changing back."

Gaara looked to the blonde with a raised eyebrow. "Why would you give such advice to someone who almost destroyed your home?"

The blonde smiled. "Well for one thing my surrogate grandfather always taught me to forgive but never forget and another is that while many of my people are either dead or injured now I know for a fact that your people have suffered worse casualties all because of one man tricking you all into joining him in this endeavor only to ditch y'all to save his own skin once things turned around on him. You and your village are victims of this battle just like us so I will do my absolute best to see you in that light instead of as the betrayers I first believed you to be."

The preteen turned away and started leading the way to the Uchiha clan compound when he stopped and looked back to Gaara. "Oh and by the way, you can be much more than just a weapon or a bloodthirsty monster, all you have to do is prove that to not only yourself but to your people. While I know it sounds like a lot to do it is possible."

(With the Akatsuki)

Itachi was standing in the darkest corner of the Akatsuki base that he could when a plant-like creature rose from the ground. This thing was half albino white and half abyss black and it wore the robes of the group. "Itachi, I have some news for you."

The Uchiha didn't speak but instead nodded his head once. The plant guy just continued. "On his first ever C-rank your brother died and gave his eyes away to one of his teammates."

This got to Itachi and he snapped his eyes wide open as he looked to the thing with his sharingan spinning wildly. "Who was it?! Who did my little brother entrust his eyes too?"

At this the plant giggled. "That's the thing Itachi, they were entrusted to the kyuubi jinchuuriki along with two other things."

The Uchiha was curious. "And what were those things?"

It grinned. "Your clan compound and… your death. The fox child is actively preparing to hunt you down."

 **XXX** **AN: hello boys and girls of fanfiction and welcome to the newest chapter of one difference changes all. I'm truly excited to get to the next chapter, I'm slowly getting closer and closer to Shippuden where things will really kick off.** **In the next chapter we'll see a 'dream scene' with Naruto then the fight we've all been waiting for, Naruto vs Itachi!** **As you can see I'm trying to slowly make Naruto have better control over himself and not be clouded by negative emotions, am i doing all that well with it?** **For those of you who don't watch/read anything to do with DC look up scarecrow and you'll see where I got Ankos serum.** **And now it's the Roguemage signing out.**


	10. chapter 10

Naruto waited outside of the Uchiha clan main house while the sand ninja got dressed. The first to come out was Temari in her clothes from the invasion and they were fixed and clean. She had her hair in its usual four spiky ponytails and she had her battle fan strapped to her back.

Walking over she was a bit scared but she quickly reminded herself that he was far nicer than she had expected from him and he had already told them that he was not mad at them or their council. Looking to her fellow blonde she spoke up. "You don't look like the typical Uchiha that we are told about back in my village, how did you come to have this compound?"

Naruto looked down sadly. "I inherited it from a friend, he died protecting me in a moment of weakness and left me his clan compound along with everything in it as well as giving me his eyes. I owe my life to him and have sworn to avenge his clansman in his stead."

Temari could feel the hate radiating off of him but she could also feel the crushing sadness, he was handling his emotions as best he could and he had help from others but he was nowhere near at healthy levels. Going for her chance to help Temari placed a hand on his shoulder and looked him in his sharingan eyes with a small smile. "Listen, everyone starts off weak and many people die in battle, there was absolutely nothing you could have done to prevent it just grow stronger and protect your friends and village to the best of your ability."

Naruto looked to the sand kunoichi and smiled slightly. "You know, for a sand ninja you act a hell of a lot like a Konoha ninja."

At that moment the other sand ninja walked out and Naruto stepped back from Temari as he put on his blindfold. "Time to get going, we'll be traveling at civilian pace so it will be two weeks before we get to Suna."

For some reason that she didn't understand Temari felt sad about the sudden change in tone from the other blonde.

(Scene change)

For the next week it was the same monotonous thing, walk through the day and sleep during the night with Naruto's shadow clones watching over them, wash, rinse, and repeat. It was the night of their seventh day and Naruto was asleep in his tent when he had the weirdest dream ever.

(scene change:mind/dreamscape)

He stood in an area that was nothing but endless black as two men in white haori's stood before him. These men seemed to be twins with fair skin, raven black hair, and coal black eyes. Naruto looked to the two with a raised eyebrow. "Ok, I'm just going to ask this now, where are we and who the hell are you two?"

The first to speak was the one to the blondes left. **"I am Asura and I'm your past life while this is my brother Indra, he's your friends past life. we are in your mind."**

Naruto was about to speak when Indra interrupted him. **"Due to the situation we're in I'm unable to pass my abilities down to my most recent reincarnation so my brother and I have come to an agreement, I will give these abilities to you along with the knowledge to use them but you will gain them over time through scrolls that I give you when I believe you to be ready for them. You will also be changed on the molecular scale meaning that you will biologically be an Uchiha."**

Naruto tilted his head to the side in confusion. "How in the name of Kami do you plan to do such a thing?"

Indra just snapped his fingers and Narutos body began to change. His hair started to darken until it was raven black, his eyes changed to the same color, and he got a tad bit paler. **"This will be what you look like in a week's time, I'd suggest saying that your previous looks was a genjutsu to hide your lineage and that your father was Fugaku Uchiha."**

The former blonde was shocked at such a major change in appearance but his mind began to go into action. "I'm an Uchiha now, I can do more than just avenge them now and rebuild."

Indra nodded. **"Yes, also I've given you the next evolution of the sharingan, you will no longer lose your sight from over use of your advanced abilities. I believe that my decendents have called it the eternal mangekyou sharingan over the years."**

Naruto bowed in respect and gratitude. "I thank you for this boon, I will be able to keep my promise that much easier now."

Asura spoke up. **"Yes, and now for my gift to you as my reincarnation." He snaps his fingers as well and wood starts to grow around them until it was a lush forest. "You now have wood style but no knowledge of how it works, my only bit of knowledge that I'll give you is that it takes a mix of water and earth chakra to use."**

Again Naruto bowed before he notices that his body is starting to fade. **"You're in danger child, your target along with an ally of his draws near, don't die so soon."**

(Scene change)

Naruto sat up in his tent quickly and started crawling out. Speaking up he woke everyone. "Get up, we need to leave immediately!"

(Temari's POV)

Temari groaned as she crawled out of her own tent. She was about to speak when she saw her fellow blonde in a pair of black anbu style pants without anything covering his upper body. Looking at his chest she saw scars, everything from cuts to burns, what's more was that when he turned around he had a flawless back, not a single scratch on it.

Before she could ask about them he spoke to her while putting on a fishnet undershirt. "Gather your stuff, we leave immediately."

The tone in his voice left no room for argument and she did as told. Within minutes the whole group was packed and ready to leave. The blonde went to speak when he was distracted by a murder of crows appearing in front of him and forming none other than Itachi Uchiha.

Unsealing a tantō the blonde got in between his opponent and the sand ninja. "Leave now, I'll handle this!"

As they stood there Naruto glared at them, sharingan spinning. "I said LEAVE!" This got them and they left quickly.

Turning back to Itachi he spoke calmly. "Tell your friend to step out now, I don't have the patience to deal with this right now and would rather just kill you both and continue with my mission."

Before Itachi could say or do anything a tall shark-like man walked out of the shadows holding a bandaged up sword. Looking this man over Naruto spoke. "Kisame Hoshigaki, rogue mist ninja and former member of the seven ninja swordsman, wielder of the sentient blade named Samehada. You are a water style ninjutsu user, a kenjutsu master, and a bit of a brute in battle, your blade absorbs chakra and can fuse with you into your sharkman for which is what got you the title of tailless tailed beast plus it has shark scales to allow for shredding the opponent. You are listed as S-rank in the bingo book with a kill on sight order."

The now named Kisame grinned at this. "It seems that you've done your homework child, very good."

Naruto grunted as he shifted his stance in preparation for battle. "I researched every missing ninja alive or dead to better prepare for my life as a shinobi, another fun fact I discovered is that your weapon actually has no true loyalty to anyone as long as it can get chakra so I will be taking Samehada as my own."

In a flash of speed that Kisame wasn't expecting the blonde got in front of him and kicked him in the chest as he snatched Samehada from the S-rank ninja.

Sealing the large blade away he smirked. "I'll learn how to use that on a later date."

Going in for the kill Naruto aimed for Itachi's heart.

Having seen Naruto's speed and having his own sharingan active Itachi sidestepped the attack and hit the blonde in the back, knocking him onto the ground where he groaned in pain. Looking down at this boy he felt nothing but disappointment. "This is it? Is this the result of your training to kill me? You're weak and my brother was a fool to entrust everything to you."

Naruto hopped back up with his sharingan spinning angrily as he sliced at the older Uchiha wildly. Said Uchiha dodged each strike easily before getting in Naruto's guard and punching him in the gut.

Hunching over Naruto was forced to regurgitate his dinner from the night before. "No form once you've lost yourself to your rage, no comprehension of your situation when you see your target. You are a disgrace to shinobi everywhere."

Grabbing the blonde by his shirt to drag him off Itachi was hit with compressed sand. The strike sent the Uchiha rolling until he hit a tree.

Standing up Naruto was forced to dodge a water bullet from Kisame and grabbed his tantō off of the ground. Taking a quick glance he saw Gaara, Kankuro, and Temari standing side by side. "I told you to run."

Gaara's nodded. "Yes you did but you are also the one to teach us that we should never back down when an ally is in danger, we will help while the others run ahead."

Naruto nodded with a smirk. "Fine then, let's do this."

Itachi stood and looked them over before he began to walk away. "Let's go Kisame, we are not sufficiently prepared to face off against two jinchuuriki at once."

Growling a little the shark-like man followed his partner. Naruto went to attack Itachi but was held back by Gaara's sand. "Not today Uzumaki-san, we must leave and grow in strength for the next time we face these men or worse."

Seeing the wisdom in this course of action Naruto reluctantly agreed. Tying his blindfold back on he followed the siblings towards the rest of the sand ninja and towards Suna.

As they moved forward Naruto thought about his quick defeat. _'I lost… I was taken down so soundly that he had only used one taijutsu move from the academy. Has all of my training been for nothing? Am I really that weak?'_

This train of thought continued until Temari spoke to him. "How did you get all of those scars on your body? Training accidents?"

The blonde kind of stiffened up but then relaxed a little. "Some of them yes but most are from my childhood. I've been beaten by the civilians many times as a kid, they tried to beat me into submission but I never once backed down, I always stood tall with my head up high to prove that I will never be beaten, that I will never surrender or submit to their will. I don't have a single scratch on my back for a reason and that's because I never turned and fled, never cowered away from it."

Temari was both in awe and sad at the same time. She was in awe of how strong a will one would need to do such a thing as what he did and she was sad that such horrible things happened to him, she wanted nothing more than to give him a hug and try to help him forget such awful things but knew that she couldn't.

The rest of the trip was mostly uneventful except for a bandit group attempted to attack them and Naruto killed them all to release some pent up aggression. over the next week he noticed that his eyes had changed to the black of an Uchiha but kept them covered and had to wear a hooded cloak to hide his darkening hair. As soon as they got to the Suna gateway they were met by a group of old men and women. All of the sand ninja bowed to them. "Honourable councilmen."

Naruto stepped forward and pulled out the scroll he'd been given and gave it to the closest councilmen. "I've been told to give this to you and await the response scroll."

The councilmen nodded and turned to Temari. "You, lead our guest to the best hotel we have and tell them that I will pay for his room personally."

Temari nodded and started to lead the way.

Showing Naruto around she had showed him where the market place was along with the park which consisted of a swing and a rocking horse before bringing him to the hotel. A lady behind the counter looked up. "Welcome to the… oh my kami!"

Turning to look behind her at a door she screamed. "TEMARI'S BACK!"

A group of children ran out of the door and surrounded her. All of the children tugged on her battle dress and tried to speak over each other.

Laughing lightly the girl spoke. "Easy children, one at a time, I'm only one girl after all."

Naruto watched as these children spoke with the girl, asking about her time in Konoha and she spun a tale that made it look like Orochimaru had attacked out of nowhere.

One of the children looked to Naruto and walked over to him. This child was a little girl with dark brown hair in twin pigtails wearing a dress and was carrying a teddy bear. "Who are you?"

The blonde crouched down to her level. "I'm Naruto Uzumaki but you can call me Naruto."

The girl scrunched up her features in concentration before she seemed to have come to some kind of conclusion. "Your name means fishcake right?"

Chuckling as he rubbed this girl's hair he nodded. "Yeah it does but how mine's written it actually means maelstrom which is a really big whirlpool."

The girl was awestruck and practically had stars in her eyes. "Woah! That's so cool! I can't wait to tell the others!"

The girl ran over to the other kids and told them what he had just said.

When the kids were satisfied they said bye and went back through the door. The girl behind the counter smiled towards him. "You're great with kids, you got any younger siblings?"

The young Uzumaki shook his head. "Not really, some kids that are like siblings to me yes but none related to me."

The girl shrugged "Either way you're amazing, so what can I help you with?"

This is when Temari speaks up. "The council has ordered me to bring him here and say that his room will be paid for by them."

The girl nods then grabs a key from under her desk. "Well here you go, your room is on the top floor, fourth door on the right."

Thanking her Naruto begins his trek up the stairs but stops to look to Temari. "Oh yeah, thanks for the help back at the border. I don't know what would have happened if you and your brothers wouldn't have helped me out." Without waiting for a response Naruto continues up the steps.

 **XXX** **AN: hello and welcome to the newest chapter of one difference changes all, how do you like it?** **I'm sorry if some of you don't like the way I had things go in the dream scene but it's the only way it was gonna work in my opinion. I also apologize for how short the fight scene was but again it made sense to me, while Naruto is crazy strong he has little to no experience with his power.** **Itachi may look like I've made him far more of an asshole but he's just discovered that his little brother that he tried so hard to protect was dead and now that he knows that Naruto is the one with his brothers eyes he's trying to test him and even push him in the right direction as subtly as possible.**


	11. chapter 11

Naruto looked around his hotel room and it was pretty basic, it was as brown as the sand outside, had a twin size bed, a nightstand, and a bathroom. Taking off his robe and undershirt he dropped on the bed and as soon as his body hit the mattress he was dragged into his mindscape by Kurama.

(Scene change:Suna council chambers)

The council had moved to their chamber with the lead councilmen taking the biggest seat for the moment. "As we all know this meeting is to see what we will have to do to keep our alliance with Konoha and decide if their demands are too high."

Opening the scroll he began. "To renew the alliance we must hand over six wind ninjutsu scrolls of A-rank, help rebuild from the damages done to the village, and… oh kami."

(Scene change: Naruto's mindscape)

Naruto stood in front of Kurama and noticed something in the reflection of the water within his mind, the image had shown what he's changing into. Kurama sighed. **"So they have shown themselves to you and they gave you their power, guess I need to tell you something important. The Uzumaki clan was closely related to the Senju who were descendants of Asura and you have been made half Uchiha now who were descendents of Indra. Within you is now the full blood of Hagoromo Otsutsuki, my creator. You have access to many different techniques now and I can teach you all of them."**

Naruto smirked. "I'm going to annihilate Itachi for what he's done, he'll regret the night he killed the Uchiha."

The fox nodded. **"Yes, you're going to be far stronger than anyone alive could imagine but you still need to train if you're going to be able to handle the amount of power you'll possess."**

Naruto nodded and sat in front of the large Biju. "Well, while my body rests let's talk."

The blonde spoke first. "Indra wants me to lie to everyone and say that i was born half Uchiha and that I'm the illegitimate son of Fugaku Uchiha and my mother but the excuse he wants me to use doesn't seem to well thought out, he said to just say it's a genjutsu."

Kurama started to think and snapped his fingers/claws. **"You're parents were both fuinjutsu masters to a degree that borders god-like and Fugaku was the same way with genjutsu, you could say that they used a fuinjutsu/genjutsu to hide the fact that you were an Uchiha. You could say that you found all of this information in Fugaku's personal study when you first inherited the clan from Sasuke."**

Nodding Naruto decided that this was the best course of action. Right then he noticed that his body started fading. "We'll talk later, seems like someone is in my room."

(Scene change)

Naruto woke up to the sight of Gaara with his sand from his gourd circling his feet. "Uh Gaara, what's with the sand?"

The redhead scowled. "We trusted you." His voice came out in the same raspy way as before but now there was a hint of steel behind it.

The blonde stood up slowly as he spoke. "What are you talking about? Did I do something wrong?"

Gaara's pulls out a scroll and shows it to him, this was the same scroll that he had been ordered to bring to Sunas council. "Read. It."

Naruto looked through it. "Let's see here, six ninjutsu scrolls, rebuilding, and… oh kami… a marriage contract between the daughter of the late Kazekage and a high class Konoha Shinobi."

Rolling up the scroll Naruto looked to Gaara. "I swear I had no idea that this was apart of the deal that the council would give your people."

The redhead sighed and called off his sand before leaning against the wall and sliding down it. "I don't know what to do, the council is going to take the deal, 'one sacrifice for the good of the many' they said and I can't stop it nor will I be able to go with her to make sure that whoever she's paired off with treats her right."

Naruto sighed as well. "I was hoping to keep my family life out of things but I can do it, if she's willing I can marry her and she'd be safe from the council's manipulations and you can trust me to treat her right."

Gaara looked up in hope. "You'd do that?!"

The blonde nodded. "Yeah, it's not well known but my father was Fugaku Uchiha though I am an illegitimate child from a drunken night out with my mother after a mission during the war. To make sure it was never discovered my mother and father sealed away my appearance with the help of the fourth hokage. Now that same seal is gone my features are changing back to what they were supposed to be. If I bring this to their attention then my claim to be married to Temari is far more legitimate and will work."

The fellow jinchuuriki stood back up. "Then let's go see Temari, see what she's got to say about all of this."

They told Temari while she was training and she took it as well as could be expected… she destroyed the training grounds with an insane amount of wind jutsu. "HOW COULD THEY JUST SELL ME OFF! I THOUGHT THEY CARED MORE THAN THIS!"

Naruto made his way through the sharp winds with a small bit of difficulty, getting cuts all over his body until he gets to Temari and holds her while she cries. Shushing her softly he holds her head into his chest. "I know It hurts, I know that you feel betrayed but if you think about it from their point of view they had just given the green light to invade their only ally and failed to do much damage while sustaining a lot of casualties, they need this to work. Plus I doubt that all of them had agreed to it."

Gaara nodded. "Baki-sensei had tried to say no along with two others and most of the council had hesitated to say yes but logic had won out over emotion."

Temari's crying had softened to the point where she's hiccuping. Soon she moves back and wipes her eyes. "Alright, when are we leaving?"

Naruto thought about it. "Well it will take some time before they can get all of the scrolls, they still need to write up the acceptance and stamp it, plus the whole gathering up a team for fixing damages, I'd say you have a week to hangout with family and friends. Don't worry though, when our wedding happens Gaara and Kankuro are automatically on the guest list."

Temari smiled and thanked him. For the next week Narutos hair and skin color changed until it matched the way he looked in his mindscape. He trained his wind chakra with Temari in the morning, got to know his future brother-in-laws as best as he could in the afternoons, and studied fuinjutsu at night before bed all while sending progress reports to Konoha.

On the last day of the week he and Temari had just finished another training session and were waiting at the gate. Naruto was no longer wearing his blindfold around his eyes but as a way to hold his hair up in a ponytail (he was planning to get a haircut as soon as he returns to Konoha) he had his ninjatō strapped to his back and had his sharingan deactivated at the moment. During the wait he was lazily flipping a kunai.

Temari was dressed in her usual battle dress but had an extra pouch on her side that carried a storage scroll full of her personal belongings.

At this moment Gaara, Kankuro, and a group of sand ninja twice the size of the group he'd escorted walked up. Gaara's took the moment to speak. "We are coming with you, the Suna council has decided that we are going to be the ones to help rebuild. I was chosen for my sand style which will allow me to pick up heavier loads while Kankuro has a multitude of puppets specifically crafted for heavy duty work loads so he can do multiple big jobs at once, the others have many different skills that will be of assistance."

Naruto nodded as Gaara also pulled out a large pouch. "This has the scroll of acceptance and copies our six best A-ranked ninjutsu."

Naruto sealed that away in the storage seal on the back of his right glove before turning around. "Let's get going, we'll move at mid chunin speed to move things along. If you start to lose pace with the rest of us don't be afraid to call out."

They left quickly and with little to no problems they left the land of wind in a little bit under two hours before stopping outside of a small village. Naruto could sense something and it bothered him. Silencing the others with a single gesture he focused on his chakra sensory.

He got images in his mind of his surroundings and got far more than the naked eye could show him, an entire labyrinth was under their feet, tunnel systems crisscrossing underneath them in an intricate pattern that most people would get lost in and he could sense people within. Oh kami, they were afraid, in pain, and on the brink of starvation and there were even more people studying them, experimenting on them.

Naruto looked to the sand siblings. "Keep your people up here, I've gotta handle something."

Using his now complete mental map of the area he found the entrance to the hideout and made his way in silently. Going straight to the scared people he peeked around a corner to find a group of scientists surrounding one girl tied down to a medal table. This girl looked to be around his age wearing what looked like rags, she had dirty matted hair, chocolate brown eyes, and dirt covered sickly pale skin.

Naruto saw that one of the scientists was holding a syringe and was about to stick it in her arm so he quickly pulled out a kunai and threw it.

With his aim true he hit the back of the man's head and pierced through with a wet squelch, the man dropped to the ground.

In the moment of shock Naruto ran in and cut down two scientists with his ninjatō and shoved a Chidori into another's chest.

Looking to each of the scientists he counted three more and all of them were still in a state of shock so he killed them with well placed shuriken. Turning to the girl he swiftly cuts her restraints off of her.

Rubbing her sore wrists the girl looks to her savior with a bit of fear, this guy had come out of nowhere and slaughtered these grown men like it was nothing. "Who are you? Are you the devil?"

The young avenger looked at her and in this dimly lit room all she could see is a silhouette with twin crimson orbs looking at her. "Not to the innocent, do you know these tunnels all that well?"

The girl shook her head in the negative. "No, the scientists kept me in a cell with other people and only brought us out for experiments before locking us back up."

Naruto nodded. "Then follow me but stay quiet and let me take care of anything we come across."

Sending shadow clones through each of the tunnels to gather all of the materials they could find he went directly to where he knew the other people were and set them free.

Gathering them all up he brought the people out of the hideout. These were men and women young and old all dirty, starved, and beaten and Naruto speaks up. "There is a small village near here, go there and speak to the townsfolk and see about getting rehabilitation and rejoining civilization."

The people thanked him for his help and left Immediately.

As soon as the last one left his shadow clones came out with a multitude of storage scrolls that he sealed into his own storage seal on his left hand.

Running back to Temari and the others they continued on there way. Temari being the closest to Naruto spoke up. "What was that about? Where did you run off too?"

The young Uchiha-Uzumaki looked forward silently for a second then answered. "I sensed something wrong so I focused my chakra sensory and came to the 'sight' of people being experimented on do I put a stop to it along with gathering Intel for future reference. It was one of Orochimaru's sick hideouts where he was trying to recreate bloodlines to give to his most loyal shinobi so in the name of all that is humane I'm gonna do what I can to put a stop to it."

The girl smiled. "Glad to see my future husband isn't going to ignore the rest of the world while hunting down his main target."

Naruto looked to her. "You do remember what I told you right? About what will happen the moment I reveal my heritage to the council right?"

The wind user nods. "Yes, you'll be forced into this CRA or clan restoration act that has you taking on a minimum of three wives to restore the Uchiha and Uzumaki clans."

Naruto nodded. "That's right, I've already got one girl in mind since I've already confessed to her that I love her, and then I'm going to marry you so I'll just have to find another girl that will be with me for me rather than for my clans name and I'll have met the minimum to appease the council."

While Temari wasn't all that pleased with the whole sharing thing she could deal with it as long as she didn't have to share with a gold digger, a bitch who tried to control everything, or someone who couldn't stand up for themselves.

Within another two hours they were back at Konoha's northern gateway where Danzo stood with Shikaku and Choza. Naruto bowed before the three councilmen. "Esteemed councilmen, I'd like to request a meeting with the entire council, I have a bit of news that has much to do with my mission."

Danzo nodded while looking Naruto over, he looked like the typical Uchiha, was he mimicking his deceased friend as a coping mechanism? He'd have to ask about that later.

Naruto told the sand siblings to lead the others to the Uchiha clan compound and set them up in the houses but not to go into the main house or the library.

Following the three council members he was led directly to the council chambers where it took only a minute for everyone to show up. Leading the meeting Danzo spoke. "We have gathered here for an unorthodox debriefing by chunin Naruto Uzumaki."

Naruto bowed respectfully to each of them before he spoke. "Before I get into the details of the mission I must state one thing, I'm not just an Uzumaki… I'm also part Uchiha."

The council went dead silent before Danzo spoke again. "Please explain this to us."

The young Uchiha cleared his throat. "When i first inherited the Uchiha clan compound from Sasuke I found Fugaku Uchiha's journal in his private study and within it I discovered the identity of my father and mother, the most obvious parent was Kushina Uzumaki seeing as she was the only living Uzumaki in Konoha at the time but my father was… Fugaku Uchiha himself."

Before anyone could interrupt he continued. "From what the journal stated I was… conceived on a drunken night out after a particularly difficult and very important mission during the war. When it was discovered that I was his instead of Minato Namikaze's the three of them chose to hide my Uchiha looks behind a powerful fuinjutsu/genjutsu to make me look like a carbon copy of the fourth but for whatever reason it began to fade after an encounter with Itachi Uchiha."

The whole council was quiet but came to the conclusion (mostly due to his appearance) that he was telling the truth.

Leaning forwards Danzo spoke in an even tone. "You do realize what will happen now right?"

Naruto nodded. "Yes, I will be placed under the CRA, due to how quickly this must be done if I wish to do this I will be marrying Temari Sabaku, she's going to be my first wife."

With that he also tosses the large pouch to Shikaku who catches it with ease. "As you can tell from the amount of sand ninja who returned with me Suna has agreed to your terms and within that pouch is the acceptance scroll and the ninjutsu scrolls."

Shikaku nods after counting the scrolls. "All here."

The bandaged councilmen nodded. "Agreeable, Temari Sabaku will soon be the first of three lady Uchihas/Uzumakis. Meeting adjourned."

 **XXX** **AN: hello and welcome to the newest chapter of one difference changes all**. **I know it seems rushed but I'm trying to keep them anywhere from 2,000 to 3,000 words long and as he is now Naruto is too strong for anyone under high A-rank to challenge him in raw power or skill. The weakest person that could probably beat him is Kakashi.** **In the next chapter we'll get some filler and a time skip, we'll be moving into the Shippuden part of the story.**


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